The Most Beautiful Bridges in Asia
14 places in 9 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful bridges in Asia are The Helix Bridge (Singapore), Khaju Bridge (Iran) and Kintai Bridge (Japan). The list covers 14 bridges in 9 countries. Vietnam has the most, with 3. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Asia's bridges span an unusually wide range of building traditions. Safavid Persia turned bridges into places to gather and linger, Japan and southern China perfected timber spans built without nails, monsoon forests gave rise to bridges grown from living roots, and modern cities have made their crossings into sculpture. Few regions show so clearly how a bridge can be a structure, a meeting place and a work of art at once.
In Isfahan, Si-o-se Pol crosses the Zayandeh River on thirty-three arches, and the Khaju Bridge, built under Shah Abbas II, doubles as a weir with tiled pavilions at its centre. Japan's Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni carries five wooden arches across the Nishiki River, and the Chengyang Bridge in Guangxi is a wind-and-rain bridge of the Dong people with covered pavilions above stone piers. In Hoi An, the Japanese Covered Bridge, with a small temple attached, recalls the town's centuries as a trading port.
Myanmar's U Bein Bridge stretches about 1.2 kilometres across Taungthaman Lake and is thought to be the longest teak bridge in the world. In Meghalaya, the Umshiang Double-Decker Root Bridge was grown by the Khasi people from the roots of rubber fig trees, and Yemen's Shaharah Bridge links two mountain villages across a deep gorge. The modern side is just as bold: Singapore's Helix Bridge echoes the shape of DNA, Da Nang's Dragon River Bridge curves in the form of a dragon, the Golden Bridge in the Bà Nà Hills rests on a pair of giant stone hands, and the Langkawi Sky Bridge hangs above the rainforest.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Helix Bridge | Bridge | Singapore | |
| 2 | Khaju Bridge | Bridge | Iran | |
| 3 | Kintai Bridge | Bridge | Japan | |
| 4 | Dragon River Bridge | Bridge | Vietnam | |
| 5 | Chengyang Yongji Bridge | Covered bridge | People's Republic of China | |
| 6 | Golden Bridge (Bà Nà Hills) | Bridge | Vietnam | |
| 7 | Si-o-se Pol | Bridge | Iran | |
| 8 | Japanese Bridge | Covered bridge | Vietnam | |
| 9 | U Bein Bridge | Bridge | Myanmar | |
| 10 | Langkawi Sky Bridge | Bridge | Malaysia | |
| 11 | Shaharah Bridge | Bridge | Yemen | |
| 12 | Umshiang Double-Decker Root Bridge | Bridge | India | |
| 13 | Henderson Waves | Bridge | Singapore | |
| 14 | Kazura bridge at the Iya Valley | Bridge | Japan |
01 The Helix Bridge
Singapore · 1.1 km from Singapore1.288° N 103.861° E
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 The design came from an international team: the Australian practice Cox Architecture with the engineers Arup, working together with the Singapore firm Architects 61. Construction began in 2007, and the steelwork took roughly 650 tonnes of duplex stainless steel, plus around 1,000 tonnes of carbon steel used for a temporary truss that held everything in place while the helices were welded together. Because the central navigation channel of the bay had to stay open, the temporary trusses were lifted in at night by paired mobile cranes. Half of the bridge opened on 24 April 2010; the whole length followed on 18 July 2010, closing the promenade loop around the bay.
Did you know? Two spirals twist in opposite directions, the smaller set inside the larger, forming a tube that carries both the walkway and its canopy.
02 Khaju Bridge
Iran · 7.4 km from Isfahan32.637° N 51.683° E
درفش کاویانی · CC BY-SA 3.0 The bridge has two storeys of arcades. The upper level carries the roadway between arched galleries; below it, a lower arcade opens onto the water, and steps lead down to shaded passages right beside the river. The vaults and spandrels are enriched with glazed tile decoration, and at the centre the bridge swells into a pavilion, the Shah-neshin, whose painted rooms served as a royal viewing place over the river — the shah is said to have watched boating and swimming here. Two stone lions guard the eastern ends; they were brought from other parts of the city in the twentieth century and set here for safekeeping.
Did you know? An inscription on the bridge records repairs carried out in 1873 under the Qajar ruler Naser al-Din Shah.
03 Kintai Bridge
Japan · 34.5 km from Hiroshima34.168° N 132.178° E
Image by ChiemSeherin from Pixabay The bridge was first completed in 1673 and was swept away by a flood the very next year. The remedy was not in the arches but beneath them: the stone piers were strengthened and the riverbed around them paved with great stones so that floodwater could not scour the sand from under their feet. After that the bridge stood for 276 years, maintained by a special tax and rebuilt in sections on a fixed cycle. It finally fell in September 1950, when Typhoon Kijia struck a structure weakened by wartime neglect and a riverbed disturbed by gravel extraction, and it was rebuilt to the old design by 1953.
Did you know? Each of the three central arches spans about 35.1 metres, while the two end spans are slightly shorter at about 34.8 metres.
04 Dragon River Bridge
Vietnam · 2.5 km from Da Nang16.061° N 108.227° E
Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên · CC BY-SA 3.0 Opened on 29 March 2013, the 38th anniversary of the day Da Nang came under North Vietnamese control, the design draws on the dragon imagery associated with Vietnam's Lý dynasty, and doubles as a genuinely practical piece of infrastructure — it's the direct route linking Da Nang's airport to the city's beachfront, meaning tourists headed for the coast typically cross a fire-breathing sculpture without planning to see one at all.
Did you know? It opened on 29 March 2013, the 38th anniversary of the day Da Nang came under North Vietnamese control in 1975.
05 Chengyang Yongji Bridge
People's Republic of China25.900° N 109.638° E
三猎 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The bridge is 64.4 metres long and 3.4 metres wide, standing about 10 metres above the water on three massive stone piers. Everything above the piers is wood, and the carpentry is the marvel: the structure is held together by mortise-and-tenon joints without a single nail or iron fitting. Five pavilions rise from the roof above the piers and the ends, their stacked eaves curving upwards in the Dong manner, and the covered gallery between them is lined with benches where villagers rest, talk and shelter from the weather that gives this kind of bridge its name.
Did you know? In 1936 a flash flood swept away the three pavilions on the southern half; villagers spent two months recovering the timbers, and rebuilding ran from 1939 to 1941.
06 Golden Bridge (Bà Nà Hills)
Vietnam · 28.1 km from Da Nang15.995° N 107.996° E
Vivu Vietnam · CC BY-SA 4.0 It was designed by TA Landscape Architecture, a Ho Chi Minh City practice, with Vu Viet Anh as principal designer and Trần Quang Hùng as bridge designer, for the resort developer Sun Group. The designers described the idea as a strip of gold drawn out of the mountain by the hands of the gods, and it took them months to convince the client. The practical brief was modest: to link a cable-car station with the resort's gardens while avoiding a steep slope. The design answer was to make the walk itself the destination, a path that loops almost back on itself so that people walking it see the hands, the railings and the valley below from constantly shifting angles.
Did you know? It stands at roughly 1,414 metres above sea level, and its deck is about 12.8 metres wide.
07 Si-o-se Pol
Iran · 6.9 km from Isfahan32.645° N 51.668° E
Corina Möller · CC BY-SA 4.0 It was built between 1599 and 1602, under Shah Abbas I, the ruler who made Isfahan the capital of Safavid Iran and reshaped it with avenues, gardens and monumental squares. The work was overseen by Allahverdi Khan Undiladze, a commander of Georgian origin who led the shah's armies, and the bridge is also known by his name. 6 metres, so the effect comes from rhythm and repetition rather than from any single daring arch. Beyond carrying traffic, the bridge also acted as a weir, controlling the flow of the river, and it linked the city's elite districts with the Armenian quarter of New Julfa on the southern bank.
Did you know? Its 33 arches are set in two superimposed rows, so the structure is effectively a double-decker bridge, with a lower level close to the water.
08 Japanese Bridge
Vietnam · 21.8 km from Da Nang15.877° N 108.326° E
François Guerraz · CC BY-SA 3.0 The bridge is about 18 metres long and 3 wide, carried on brick piers, with a timber frame beneath three linked roofs covered in yin-yang tiles. Look for the carved wooden animals guarding the two ends, a dog at one and a monkey at the other, figures linked in Japanese folklore to the subduing of Namazu; for the lacquered red woodwork; and for the board over the temple door bearing three Chinese characters, Lai Viễn Kiều, "bridge for guests from afar", the name given by Lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu when he visited in 1719. Despite its name, the little temple holds no Buddha but a statue of Trấn Vũ, a guardian deity.
Did you know? Japanese merchants reportedly began the bridge in 1593 and finished it in 1595, while the temple on its north side is dated to 1653.
09 U Bein Bridge
Myanmar · 9.3 km from Mandalay21.892° N 96.057° E
Image by karl-ferdinand from Pixabay The bridge went up between 1849 and 1851 and takes its name from Maung Bein, the official who had it built. Its timber came secondhand, salvaged from the former royal palace at Inwa – so the posts that hold up today's footway once stood in a king's residence. The original structure rested on 984 teak posts; with the approach sections and pavilions the count has risen to 1,086, and each post carries a number in Burmese numerals. The deck spans 482 sections and bends gently in the middle, a curve meant to help it withstand wind and water.
Did you know? Construction began when the royal capital moved from Ava to Amarapura, which is why the timber of the abandoned Inwa palace was available.
10 Langkawi Sky Bridge
Malaysia6.386° N 99.662° E
Cheon Fong Liew from Kluang, Malaysia · CC BY-SA 2.0 The mountain is the real treasure. The Machinchang ridge is built of sandstone and shale laid down in the Cambrian period, roughly 550 to 505 million years ago, the oldest sedimentary rocks in Malaysia and among the oldest in South-East Asia. They form the heart of the Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park, part of the Langkawi UNESCO Global Geopark. From the bridge you look down on the result of all that time: steep, jagged ridges furred with dense forest, cliffs of grey-brown stone, and on clear days the long curve of the coast and the islands of the archipelago.
Did you know? The pylon is tilted from the vertical at 12 degrees in one plane and 2 degrees in another.
11 Shaharah Bridge
Yemen16.165° N 43.697° E
Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0 Its date is disputed. Some accounts place the work in the 17th century, built by a local lord to join two villages; others attribute it to 1905, under Imam Yahya, saying it took about three years and cost a large sum for the time. Local tradition names the builder as a master mason called Usta Saleh, and holds that the strain of finishing a structure people thought impossible drove him mad. The bridge has been nicknamed the Bridge of Sighs, and it appears on the reverse of Yemen's 10-rial coin.
Did you know? The cost is recorded as roughly 100,000 French riyals, the coinage then circulating in Yemen and an enormous sum for a mountain village.
12 Umshiang Double-Decker Root Bridge
India25.251° N 91.672° E
Arup619pal · CC BY-SA 4.0 What makes the double-decker remarkable is less its size than its structure. Up close the deck is a mat of roots worn smooth by feet and packed with stones, the handrails are roots too, and the whole thing looks less like engineering than like the forest has decided to reach across the stream. Because it is alive, it never quite stops changing: new roots drop from the trees and must be trained in or pruned away, and a bridge left without care can grow wild and become impassable. No one knows when the tradition began.
Did you know? Around a hundred living root bridges are now known across about 70 villages of the East Khasi and West Jaintia Hills, the Nongriat double-decker among the most famous.
13 Henderson Waves
Singapore · 4.8 km from Singapore1.276° N 103.816° E
Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0 The bridge grew out of a 2002 plan by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority to tie together a chain of hill parks along the southern ridge, from Kent Ridge to Mount Faber, with new footpaths and bridges. A design competition followed, and the scheme chosen for the crossing over Henderson Road came from the London-based IJP Architects with the engineers AKT, working with the Singapore firm RSP Architects Planners & Engineers. The structure is 274 metres long and 8 metres wide.
Did you know? The digital 3D model was unravelled into flat 2D sections so that local craftsmen could cut and assemble the curved timber by hand.
14 Kazura bridge at the Iya Valley
Japan33.875° N 133.835° E
ume-y · CC BY 2.0 No one knows when the first vine bridges were made here. A provincial map of Awa from 1646 already shows seven of them in Iya, and a travel account of 1657 lists thirteen. Local tradition offers two origins: one credits the monk Kūkai with building a bridge for villagers who could not cross the river; the other holds that warriors of the Taira clan, hiding in these mountains after their defeat in the Genpei War of the 1180s, used vines so that the bridges could be cut down at once if pursuers came. Neither story can be proved, but the valley's remoteness made it a refuge for centuries.
Did you know? Some 350,000 people cross it every year, which is why it wears out quickly and must be completely rewoven so often.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful bridges in Asia?
- On our list, The Helix Bridge (Singapore) ranks first, followed by Khaju Bridge (Iran) and Kintai Bridge (Japan).
- Which country has the most bridges in Asia?
- In our collection, the most come from Vietnam (3), Iran (2) and Japan (2).
- How are living root bridges made?
- Khasi and Jaintia communities in Meghalaya guide the aerial roots of rubber fig trees across streams, often along bamboo or wooden frames. As the roots grow and intertwine over decades, they become strong enough to carry people.
- Why is Si-o-se Pol called that?
- Si-o-se Pol means bridge of thirty-three in Persian, after the number of its arches. It was built in the early seventeenth century under Shah Abbas I.
- What is U Bein Bridge made of?
- U Bein Bridge near Mandalay is built of teak, much of it reused from a former royal palace, and it is thought to be the oldest and longest teak bridge in the world.
- How many bridges are on this list in Asia?
- The list covers 14 bridges in 9 countries. Vietnam has the most, with 3.