Bridges and tunnels across the Yangtze River

The bridges and tunnels across the Yangtze River carry rail and road traffic
across China's longest and largest river and form a vital part of the country's
transportation infrastructure. The river bisects China proper from west to east,
and every major north-south bound highway and railway must cross the Yangtze.
Large urban centers along the river such as Chongqing, Wuhan, and Nanjing also
have urban mass transit rail lines crossing the Yangtze.
Pontoon bridges have been used by militaries for two thousand years on the
Yangtze, but until the completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957,
there were no permanent bridges along the main stretch of the river known as
Chang Jiang (the "Long River"), from Yibin to the river mouth in Shanghai, a
distance of 2,884 km (1,792 mi). Since then, over 75 bridges and six tunnels
have been built over this stretch, the overwhelming majority since 1990. They
reflect a broad array of bridge designs and, in many cases, represent significant
achievements in modern bridge engineering. Several rank among the world's
longest suspension, cable-stayed, arch bridges, truss and box girder bridges as
well as some of the highest and tallest bridges.
Upriver from Yibin, bridge spans are more common along the Jinsha and Tongtian
sections where the Yangtze is much narrower, although numerous new bridges
are being added. The oldest bridge still in use is the Jinlong, a simple suspension
bridge over the Jinsha section of the river in Lijiang, Yunnan that was originally
built in 1880 and rebuilt in the 1936.[1]
Due to changes in the designation of the source of the Yangtze, various sections
of the river have been thought of as distinct rivers with different names. The
bridges and tunnels of the Yangtze have compound names consisting of the
location name and the river section name. Today, the river has four sectional
names in (Chinese) : (1) Tuotuo, (2) Tongtian, (3) Jinsha and (4) Chang Jiang.
The Tuotuo River, considered the official headstream of the Yangtze, flows
358 km (222 mi) from the glaciers of the Gelaindong massif in the Tanggula
Mountains of southwestern Qinghai to the confluence with the Dangqu River to
form the Tongtian River.
The Tongtian continues for 813 km (505 mi) to the confluence with the Batang
River at Yushu in south central Qinghai.
The Jinsha or Gold Sands River continues for 2,308 km (1,434 mi) along the
border of western Sichuan with Qinghai, Tibet, and Yunnan, through northern
Yunnan and southern Sichuan to the confluence with the Min River at Yibin in
south central Sichuan.
Chang Jiang or the "Long River" refers to the final 2,884 km (1,792 mi) of the
Yangtze from Yibin through southeastern Sichuan, Chongqing, western Hubei,
northern Hunan, eastern Hubei, northern Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu to the river's
mouth in Shanghai. Chang Jiang is generally substituted by "Yangtze" in English
usage.

For example, the Nanjing Chang Jiang Bridge is translated as the Nanjing Yangtze
River Bridge. The Taku Jinsha River Bridge is a bridge along the Jinsha section of
the Yangtze.