The longest ancient stone bridge in China

An Binh Bridge is built from large blocks of stone, over 2 km long, located in the west of Fuzhou City, China.

The original An Binh Bridge crosses the Shijing estuary, dividing the town of An Hai and Tan Giang to the east of the river and the town of Shuibe and Nam An to the west of the river.An Hai is the former name of An Binh, used to name the bridge.

The bridge was built from 1138 to 1151 in the Nam Tong period (Thieu Hung).In the Ming and Qing dynasties, bridges were also regularly rehabilitated.The bridge includes 331 marble beams arranged in the shape of a boat, the largest span weighing 25 tons.Along the bridge, there are four stylized stone pillars stylized into four square pagodas and two symmetrical circles on each side.The bridge also has 5 houses as a resting place, but now only one remains.

The spans are arranged in a boat shape (pointed at the top) in order to create a flow of water.

The Shijing estuary today is sludge mostly in this area, and the river that flows below the bridge has been narrowed.Therefore, the current bridge mainly goes through a series of lakes, ponds, separated by a wetland.A modern highway crosses the Shining River a few hundred meters south of the An Binh Bridge on a fairly short bridge.

Since there were no adhesives like cement at the time, the marble bars were mostly stacked in a certain order.The number of spans reaches more than 300 though its length is just over 2 km.However, the demand still maintained a good condition after nearly 900 years of existence.

An Binh Bridge is now a protected national historical site.Areas around the bridge are currently being developed into parks.