Image from Xinhua

Xinhua reports that the two halves of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge that will connect Shanghai to Ningbo were linked yesterday after more than three years of construction.

According to Xinhua, the bridge has the world's longest cross-sea span. It will cut the length of the drive from Shanghai to Ningbo from 400 km to 80km.

Here's a photo of the future site of a 30-story observation tower and a hotel and conference center to be built right in the middle of the bridge:

Image from The Beijing News.

Also in the biggest, longest, most macho category of engineering achievements, another report from Xinhua says that 'the two ends of the bridge with the world's longest span were connected over China's Yangtze River' on June 18. The report explains:

Started simultaneously in the cities of Nantong and Suzhou in 2003, the Sutong Yangtze Road Bridge, linking Nantong and Changshuin Suzhou, runs 32.4 kilometers, with 8,146 meters spanning the Yangtze, China's longest waterway.

It has the world's longest span of 1,088 meters, usurping the previous record holder, the Tatara Bridge in Japan, which has a main span of 890 meters.

Its steel and concrete bridge towers, the tallest in the world, stand at 300.4 meters...

... Around 150,000 bridges had been built in China over the past 15 years, an average of 10,000 a year, said Xu Kuangdi, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The bridges, with a total distance of more than 8,300 kilometers, include road and railway bridges, cloverleaf intersections in big cities, and 156.7 kilometers of bridges built on frozen ground for the Qinghai-Tibet railway.