Three Natural Bridges
Interesting facts
- Chinese sources describe the site as the only known place where three natural bridges of this size follow one another along a single river.
- The rock overhead is immensely thick: roughly 150 metres above the opening of Tianlong, 168 metres above Qinglong and 107 metres above Heilong.
- After heavy rain a waterfall spills over Qinglong Bridge, and sunlight in its spray can form a rainbow said to resemble a dragon rising to the sky.
- The two collapse pits between the bridges measure roughly 300 to 522 metres around their rims.
- The bridges are the core of a protected area of about 20 square kilometres that also takes in caves, a narrow slot gorge and several smaller tiankengs.
- The Yangshui River that carved them is a tributary of the Wu River, one of the major southern tributaries of the Yangtze.
- The area was declared a national geopark in October 2003, four years before it joined the UNESCO World Heritage List.
- The bridges have often been described as the largest group of natural bridges in Asia.
Why it is worth it
In the karst country of Wulong, south-east of Chongqing, the Yangshui River has spent its life dissolving limestone from the inside. What it left behind is a rare sequence: three colossal natural arches strung along a single gorge, each the surviving roof of a cave whose middle has fallen in. The whole run from the upper end of the first bridge to the lower end of the last is only about a kilometre and a half, so the arches follow one another like the vaults of a ruined nave, with open sinkholes of sky between them.
The three are named for dragons. Tianlong, the Sky Dragon, stands about 235 metres tall with some 96 metres of open air beneath it; Qinglong, the Azure Dragon, is the tallest at roughly 281 metres; Heilong, the Black Dragon, is the broadest, close to 200 metres wide, with the highest opening of the three. Beside the arches open two enormous collapse pits, Qinglong and Shenying tiankeng, each more than 270 metres deep. Together they form part of the Wulong Karst, inscribed by UNESCO in 2007 as one of the components of the South China Karst World Heritage Site.
The appeal is the play of scale and light. From the valley floor the bridges read as dark gateways framing bright walls of green forest. On the grassy floor beneath Tianlong stands a grey-walled courtyard with green tiles, the Tianfu Official Post, built as a set for Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) and left in place; the gorge later served as a backdrop for Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). The set looks strangely at home, a tiny human house in a room made by a river.
The descent itself is part of the experience: a glass lift drops from the cliff edge into the valley, and the walking path then threads under all three arches in turn, so that each one is seen first as a frame and then as a ceiling.
Getting there
The bridges lie in Xiannüshan Town, Wulong District, about 20 km from the Wulong district seat; the nearest listed town, Huolu, is roughly 8 km away. Chongqing Xiannüshan Airport (CQW) is about 11 km off. Most visitors come from central Chongqing by road to Wulong and on to the scenic-area visitor centre; the route through the gorge is on foot.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Furong Cave, Wulong 24.8 km · cave
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Three Natural Bridges are a series of natural limestone bridges located in Xiannüshan Town, Wulong District, Chongqing Municipality, China. They lie within the Wulong Karst National Geology Park, itself a part of the South China Karst-Wulong Karst UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Chinese, the bridges are all named after dragons, namely Tianlong Qinglong and Heilong.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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