14 mega structures in China you can’t miss

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Boaz Rottem / Alamy Stock Photo

The Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge is the longest sea crossing in the world consisting of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel and four artificial islands. Designed to last 120 years, it connects three major cities in the Pearl River Delta.

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Dmitry Rukhlenko - Travel Photos / Alamy Stock Photo

The Guangzhou Opera House is one of the biggest theatres in China. It was designed by the renowned Zaha Hadid whose work includes the London Aquatics Centre, the MAXXI Museum and the gorgeous Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku.

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Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo

The Harbin-Dalian railway is the first high-speed train designed to operate at temperature extremes of -40C in winter and 40C in summer. It’s rated to run at 300kph all year round.

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Imaginechina Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

The Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge stretches over 500 metres across the Yangtze River. It’s the longest combined road and rail cable-stayed bridge in the world.

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Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo

Nicknamed “the starfish”, the Beijing Daxing International Airport sprawls out at 700,000 square metres. It’s another stunning piece of architecture that was designed by the late Zaha Hadid.

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Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo

This 400-mile bullet train line traverses through mountains and valleys to reduce the travel time between Xi’an and Chengdu by two-thirds. It’s the first line to cut through the Qinling Mountains which separates the north and south of China.

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The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) sits in a natural basin in Guizhou, southwest China. Nicknamed Tianyan, literally Heaven’s Eye, it’s the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope.

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The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge floats across the water to reduce the travel time between Qingdao and Huangdao by 30 minutes. Designed to resist earthquakes, typhoons and ship collisions, the entire connection is 26-miles long.

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Andrea Di Martino / Alamy Stock Photo

Despite its name, The Solar Valley Micro-E Hotel is the largest solar-powered hotel in the world. Found in the Solar Valley region of Dezhou, it’s one of the key buildings in this futuristic region which may become a template for China’s next generation of clean energy cities.

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Imaginechina Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

Sticking with green energy, the Gansu Wind Farm Project is one of six massive wind farms in China. It sits along the Gobi Desert where it’s able to convert the extremely high winds into clean energy to enable China’s continual growth.

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Dmitrii Telegin / Alamy Stock Photo

The Yan’an Interchange in Shanghai is one of the craziest you’ll see. Boasting 15 exit points, it proves to be crucial for maintaining traffic flow in a bustling city that has over three million vehicles on the road.

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avada / Alamy Stock Photo

This obscure building might resemble an impossible staircase illusion but it’s the headquarters of state-owned broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV). Locally, it’s often referred to as “big pants”.

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Formerly the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world, the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge is over five miles long. What once was a four-hour ferry from Nantong to Shanghai is now a one-hour drive across the Yangtze River.

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View Stock / Alamy Stock Photo

The Beijing South Railway Station is the largest in the city. The waiting area alone can hold 10,000 passengers and it can send off 30,000 passengers per hour.