CHINA 5A TRAVEL
Asia's greatest cluster of natural stone bridges - three cathedral-scale karst arches spanning a collapsed doline valley near Chongqing, with a Tang-dynasty post station tucked beneath the first bridge and a knife-blade gorge beside it.
Wulong's Three Natural Bridges - Tianlong, Qinglong and Heilong - are the crown of the South China Karst UNESCO World Heritage inscription. Over millions of years a cave system collapsed into a giant doline, leaving three stone arches up to 200 meters high and 300 wide strung along a single walkable gorge: Asia's largest natural bridge group, praised by geologists as an 'earth heritage, world wonder'.
The visit is pure drama: a glass-fronted elevator drops you through a sinkhole to the valley floor, where the first arch frames the Tianfu Post Station - a rebuilt Tang-dynasty courier courtyard that starred in Zhang Yimou's 'Curse of the Golden Flower' and 'Transformers: Age of Extinction'. From there a one-way boardwalk threads beneath all three bridges, dwarfed by cliffs, under 'one-line-sky' gaps and hanging waterfalls.
The same ticket zone covers the Longshuixia Gap (地缝), a companion slit-canyon whose 2-kilometer boardwalk squeezes between 200-meter knife walls past the Jiaolong Cold Cave and calcite formations shaped like a bathing crane and a meditating arhat. Most visitors combine both in a day trip from Chongqing, 2.5 hours away, often with Xiannu Mountain's grasslands or the Wu River gallery added on.
Highlights
Tianlong Bridge & the elevator drop
The sightseeing lift descends the sinkhole wall straight into the first arch's shadow - the greatest single 'wow' in Chongqing's region.
Tianfu Post Station
The Tang-style courtyard beneath Tianlong Bridge - film set of 'Curse of the Golden Flower' and 'Transformers 4', framed by 200-meter cliffs.
Qinglong Bridge
The tallest of the three - at midday a shaft of light spears through its opening onto the valley floor.
Heilong Bridge & its curtain falls
The last arch, named for its shadowed darkness, with springs sheeting down the approach walls.
Longshuixia Gap
The companion 2-km slot canyon: knife-cut walls, fern ledges, the cold-breathing Jiaolong Cave and sky reduced to a bright seam.
Glass lookout above the doline
A cantilevered glass deck over the sinkhole near the entrance for the aerial view of the bridges.
Photo Gallery
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