Jinlong Bridge 金龙桥

About Jinlong Bridge

Its suspended wooden deck and chains make the engineering legible from the riverbank. The crossing once carried trade along the tea-and-horse routes, and the exposed river setting helps explain the importance of a bridge at this location. Approach it as a heritage visit: inspect the structure from permitted areas and use the current access notices to decide whether crossing is allowed.

Construction began in the second year of the Guangxu era (1876) and was funded by Jiang Zonghan (蒋宗汉), a Guizhou provincial military commander; the bridge took five years to complete, opening in the sixth year of Guangxu (1880) at a cost of more than 14,500 taels of silver, and 48 workers died during the work. Once complete, the bridge was placed under the management of the Lijiang Public School (丽江公学), which collected tolls to pay for maintenance and staff wages. Before the bridge existed, crossing the river required log troughs in winter and spring and bamboo zip-lines in summer and autumn.

The bridge was listed as a Lijiang county-level cultural-relic protection unit in 1985, a Yunnan provincial-level cultural-relic protection unit in 2003, and a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位) in 2006. Because it lies within the flood zone of the Longkaikou hydropower station (龙开口水电站) reservoir, the bridge underwent a preservation project that raised it in place on its original site; survey work began in 2009, construction started in 2011, and the project was completed and passed inspection in 2016, raising the bridge by about 6 meters while keeping its original eighteen iron chains, reinforced with added steel cables.

What to look for

• Iron chains carry the narrow suspended deck across the Jinsha River.
• The riverbank view shows the relationship between the bridge, its anchor points and the broad channel.

Location & getting there

Getting to Jinlong Bridge

Arrange a road transfer to Jinlong Bridge on the Jinzi road section, specifying the old Zili iron-chain bridge across the Jinsha River. Confirm the accessible bank and return connection before leaving the main road.