‘Longest in world’: China unveils 22km expressway tunnel in Xinjiang - watch video

China on Friday opened a 22.13-kilometre-long expressway tunnel in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which it said is the world’s longest of its kind, significantly reducing travel time across the rugged Tianshan mountain range.

The Tianshan Shengli tunnel, which runs beneath the central Tianshan mountains in northwest China, has shortened what was previously a difficult mountain journey of several hours to about 20 minutes, according to state media reports.


Song Hailiang, chairman of China communications construction company, said the project had set global benchmarks.


“It is the longest expressway tunnel in the world and has the deepest vertical shaft for a highway tunnel,” Song said, as quoted by official media.

The tunnel forms a key section of the G0711 Urumqi–Yuli expressway, which also became fully operational on Friday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.


The expressway is designed to serve as a major transport artery linking city clusters in northern and southern Xinjiang.

The Tianshan mountain range stretches about 2,500 kilometres across central Xinjiang, separating the provincial capital Urumqi in the north from Korla, the largest city in the south. With the opening of the new expressway, travel time between Urumqi and Korla has been reduced from around seven hours to approximately three hours, the report said.

The 324.7-kilometre-long expressway was built over five years at a total investment of 46.7 billion yuan (about USD 6.63 billion), according to official figures.