Yanxi Bridge

Yanxi Bridge

Yanxi Bridge is a Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Yanxi Bridge is located at Gaosikang Office in the northern part of Hechuan City. It includes a Qing Dynasty bridge but dates back to the Song Dynasty.

Also known as Yanci Bridge, ancient records refer to it as Lianji Bridge or Gujin Bridge. It is one of only two ancient Song Dynasty bridges discovered in the Bayu region. The original site was at the mouth of the Yanxi River on the western bank of the Jialing River, in the northern suburbs of Hechuan District, Chongqing. It was first built in the Southern Song Dynasty's Qingyuan Year of Yimao (1195) by a local resident named Zhang Yanyuan. In the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang Year of Dinghai (1827), a local named Zhu Ruhui carried out renovations. It was discovered during Sichuan Province’s 1987 cultural relics survey and is currently the earliest known civilian stone arch bridge in Chongqing. It was also among the first group of Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Units after Chongqing became a municipality directly under the central government.

The bridge is 24.3 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 6.2 meters high, with a single span of 5.6 meters. It features a single-arch, double-circle, mortise-flat-jointed structure made of strip stones. Despite annual flooding, the bridge remained undamaged for nearly 800 years. Due to the construction of the Caogou Navigation and Power Hub Reservoir project, Yanxi Bridge was relocated and preserved — moved 40 meters upstream along the Yanxi River. The stonework of the bridge was repaired and reinforced, and the bridge foundation was strengthened.

Yanxi Bridge provides valuable physical evidence for the study of ancient bridge construction methods in eastern Sichuan and Chongqing, and holds significant importance in the history of ancient bridges and transportation.

In 2000, Yanxi Bridge was designated by the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government as one of the first Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Units.