The Most Remarkable Tunnels in the World
4 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable tunnels in the world are Lærdal Tunnel (Norway), Tunnel of Love, Klevan (Ukraine) and Guoliang Tunnel (People's Republic of China). The list covers 4 tunnels in 4 countries. The Faroe Islands has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Most tunnels are meant to be forgotten the moment you leave them. The remarkable ones are remembered for what happens inside: light used to break up kilometres of darkness, rock left raw and visible, openings cut to frame a drop into a valley. Some are not even dug, but grown, where trees close over a track until the passage becomes a vault of leaves.
The four places here could hardly be more different. The Tunnel of Love near Klevan in Ukraine is a stretch of forest railway where passing trains have shaped the branches into a green corridor. Norway's Lærdal Tunnel, the longest road tunnel in the world at about 24.5 kilometres, is broken by three caverns lit in blue and yellow to keep drivers alert. In China's Taihang Mountains, villagers of Guoliang cut their road through a cliff by hand in the 1970s, leaving window-like openings over the abyss. Under the sea in the Faroe Islands, the Eysturoy Tunnel meets at a roundabout ringed with light and sculpture.
The tunnels were chosen for how they look and are ordered by beauty. Each has its own text, a photograph credited to its author and a point on the map, and the section also opens by country on separate pages.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lærdal Tunnel | Tunnel | Norway | |
| 2 | Tunnel of Love, Klevan | Tunnel | Ukraine | |
| 3 | Guoliang Tunnel | Tunnel | People's Republic of China | |
| 4 | Eysturoy Tunnel | Tunnel | Faroe Islands |
01 Lærdal Tunnel
Norway60.972° N 7.368° E
W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Lærdal Tunnel is the longest road tunnel in the world: 24.5 km of rock between Aurland and Lærdal in western Norway, carrying the E16 highway beneath the mountains that separate Oslo from Bergen. It opened on 27 November 2000 as the last link in a route that allows drivers to cross between the two cities all year round without ferries and without the high mountain passes that close in winter.
Did you know? When it opened, the tunnel took the title of world's longest road tunnel from Switzerland's St Gotthard, and King Harald V performed the opening.
02 Tunnel of Love, Klevan
Тунель кохання
Ukraine · 20.9 km from Rivne50.751° N 26.046° E
Tigrranubis7 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Near the small town of Klevan in western Ukraine, a single-track industrial railway runs through a forest, and for several kilometres the trees close over it in an almost perfect arch. The result is the Tunnel of Love: a green corridor with a rail line down the middle, walls and roof made of leaves, and a vanishing point that seems to go on forever. In late spring and summer it is a luminous tube of green; in autumn it turns gold; in winter the bare branches draw a lattice against the snow.
Did you know? The whole branch line is about 6.4 km long, and roughly 4.9 km of it runs through the forest where the green arch forms.
03 Guoliang Tunnel
People's Republic of China35.731° N 113.604° E
FANG Chen from Beijing, China · CC BY 2.0 For centuries the only way out of Guoliang, a village perched on a cliff in the Taihang Mountains of northern Henan, was a stairway cut into the rock face. In 1972 the villagers, led by their party secretary Shen Mingxin, decided to cut a road through the cliff themselves. They sold livestock to raise money for tools and materials, and a team of thirteen began work with hammers, chisels and hand drills; at the hardest stretches progress was a metre every three days, and at least one villager died during the work. The road opened to traffic on 1 May 1977.
Did you know? The diggers cut 35 openings into the outer wall to throw out rubble; today these 'windows' light the gallery and serve as viewpoints over the gorge.
04 Eysturoy Tunnel
Eysturoyartunnilin
Faroe Islands · 5.4 km from Tórshavn62.075° N 6.785° W
Renno Hokwerda · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Eysturoy Tunnel is a piece of infrastructure that became a sight in its own right. Opened on 19 December 2020, it runs for more than 11 km under the Tangafjørður, the sound between the islands of Streymoy and Eysturoy, and also passes under the southern end of Skálafjørður. It is really three tunnels in one: a main bore from Hvítanes near Tórshavn and two branches that come in from either shore of Skálafjørður, meeting beneath the sea at a roundabout about 73 metres below the surface. It is often described as the world's first undersea roundabout.
Did you know? With a total road length of about 11.2 km, it ranks as the second-longest undersea road tunnel in the world, after Norway's Ryfast near Stavanger.
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 is the longest road tunnel in the world?
- The Lærdal Tunnel in Norway, opened in 2000, is about 24.5 kilometres long and is the world's longest road tunnel. Three illuminated caverns along the way break the monotony of the drive.
- What is the Tunnel of Love in Ukraine?
- It is a section of private industrial railway near Klevan in the Rivne region where trees grow over the line and the passing trains keep the branches trimmed into an arch, forming a long green tunnel.
- Where is the underwater roundabout?
- The Eysturoy Tunnel in the Faroe Islands, opened in 2020, has a roundabout beneath the sea where its three branches meet, decorated with light and a sculpture by the Faroese artist Tróndur Patursson.
- What is the most remarkable tunnel in the world?
- On our list, Lærdal Tunnel (Norway) ranks first, followed by Tunnel of Love, Klevan (Ukraine) and Guoliang Tunnel (People's Republic of China).
- How many tunnels are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 4 tunnels in 4 countries. The Faroe Islands has the most, with 1.