Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge

Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge

The Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge is located on the Chahan Salt Lake in the southern part of the Qaidam Basin. It lies about 60 kilometers south of Golmud and approximately 30 kilometers north of Xitieshan. The highway resembles a bridge floating atop brine, stretching 32 kilometers in length — equivalent to ten thousand zhang in traditional Chinese measurement — and spans the entire Chahan Salt Lake, hence its renowned name “Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge.” It is an exceptionally rare type of road bridge and also a spectacular wonder of the Qaidam Basin. Introduction

Introduction

The Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge is, in fact, a wide road paved with salt and built over a salt lake. It has neither bridge piers nor guardrails. The entire surface is smooth and flat as a whetstone, almost indistinguishable from an urban asphalt road. Interestingly, due to the excessively smooth surface, cars driving too fast can skid and overturn. Therefore, a wooden sign at the bridgehead limits the maximum speed to 80 kilometers per hour. The maintenance method for the salt bridge is quite unique. Normally, when potholes appear on the road surface, maintenance workers break off some salt chunks from nearby salt crusts, then scoop up a ladle of thick brine from a prepared pit by the roadside, pour it over the holes, and the salt quickly melts and solidifies on the road, restoring the damaged areas to their original condition.

The Ten-Thousand-Zhang Salt Bridge is broad and long, offering boundless scenery. Travelers arriving here by vehicle will see the straight, open road bridge slicing the vast salt lake in half like a sharp sword. Along both sides of the salt bridge are workshops and dormitories of the potash fertilizer plant, gully-like mining sites, and not far away, the world-famous Qinghai-Tibet Railway. Long trains, like giant snakes, spout steam and roar as they speed across the lake surface.