In this article, I would like to talk about some of the world's largest spans of natural bridges. The definition of Tiansheng Bridge is sometimes a little difficult, there is a concept of natural arch in the world, and the Tiansheng Bridge should be no different from the natural arch, but the Tiansheng Bridge belongs to China's unique statement. However, in the eyes of many scholars who study caves and lava landforms, natural arches are a big category, and Tiansheng Bridge is one of them. They have a variety of classification criteria, based on the formation mechanism, mainly divided into various erosion, spalling, expansion, Tiansheng Bridge is mainly due to the erosion of flowing water and accompanied by mountain spalling, collapse formed, there must be or have been runoff under the bridge, the natural arch formed by wind erosion mainly appears in the higher part of the desert area, and the sea erosion is formed by the sea erosion hole that many coasts in the world have. Therefore, the Tiansheng Bridge in this article should first be a natural arch mainly eroded by flowing water, but there is only a blur here, because since it is called Tiansheng Bridge, according to our definition of the bridge, it should be that the span (maximum span) is greater than the width of the bridge deck (minimum width), at least it cannot be significantly less than the width, but the international and domestic definitions are not too rigorous, and some widths that are significantly larger than the span are also called Tiansheng Bridges, in fact, these should be called piercings, that is, caves with special structures. Therefore, another standard of the Tiansheng Bridge in this post is that the span diameter cannot be significantly less than the width, and only one of the ten Tiansheng Bridges has a span slightly less than the width, in view of the fact that there are a small number of bridges in the world that have a span diameter less than the width, this one is also counted. In addition, the international definition of span is not completely unified, the stricter standard is the minimum span at the bottom, but many domestic Tiansheng bridges use the maximum span, but no matter the smallest and largest, there is a problem of fuzzy points, and it is not as accurate as geometry, so I will also use the general statement (will list several data), and most of the Tiansheng bridges in the text are relatively narrow, and the span has not changed much. Of course, any natural bridge is not static, because erosion is a continuous process, so the top ten natural bridges in this article can only refer to the current ten (or at most a period of time in the future), some of which may collapse after tens or hundreds of years, and others according to the standards of this article can only be called piercing The width of more than 100 years has narrowed, which can be called a bridge.
1. Leye Xianren Bridge, located at 24°41 158. East longitude 106°47 5994, on the Buliu River, a tributary of the Hongshui River, in Xinhua Township, about 50 kilometers southeast of Leye County, Guangxi. The Xianren Bridge is currently the world's largest known span bridge, reaching 17714 meters, but this data has a lot of moisture, because the fairy bridge is a somewhat crooked arch bridge, and its northeast end (i.e., the right bank of the Bulyu River) is a cliff with a negative angle, 177The 14-meter figure is measured from the bottom of the northeasternmost corner of the cliff, but the bridge deck is no longer above this place. In 2010, scholars from the Natural Arch and Bridge Society (NABS) measured 121 spans to a stricter standard9 ± 4.6 meters, while the spans measured with less stringent standards are around 140-145 meters. With a deck height of 145 meters, a thickness of 78 meters, a maximum arch span of 67 meters, and a width of less than 20 meters at its narrowest point, it is a standard natural bridge. Most of the natural bridges are inherited from the undercurrent formation of the hole, the Buliu River is a river with developed undercurrent, from the form of the fairy bridge, the earliest formation of the hole has been a long time ago, so the bridge deck is so narrow, the arch is so big, so high, one day in the future this arch bridge will also collapse and cease to exist.
2. Jiangzhou Xianren Bridge, located at 24 ° 19 8 north latitude and 106 ° 58 19 east longitude, is about 26 kilometers south of Fengshan County, Guangxi, on the Jiangzhou River, a tributary of the Hongshui River ** tributary of the Panyang River, a tributary of the Hongshui River. Jiangzhou Xianren Bridge is currently the world's second largest known span of the natural bridge, up to 144 meters, but this data also has some moisture, is the data on the introduction board of the local national geological park, another data is 118 meters, the natural arch bridge society in 2010 with a stricter standard to measure the span data also reached 85-105 meters or so, the bridge arch span in the middle of a bend, resulting in the difficulty of measuring the selection point, if measured along the bridge arch line, the span is an arc. The south side of the Jiangzhou Bridge is the river channel of the Jiangzhou River, the north side is slightly higher, there is the county road of Fengshan County through, the vertical height of the road surface to the bottom of the river valley is about 11 meters, the arch span above the road surface is about 46 meters high, the highest bridge deck is about 80 meters, and the narrowest part of the bridge width is less than 40 meters.
3. Gaotun Tiansheng Bridge, located at 26°19 4767, east longitude 109°10 1856, about 10 kilometers northeast of Liping County, Guizhou Province, on the Liangjiang River, a tributary of the Qingshui River, the source of the Yuan River, Gaotun Township, near Liping Airport, the northeast end of the airport runway is almost facing about 1Tiansheng Bridge 2 km away. Gaotun Tiansheng Bridge is currently the third largest known span in the world, up to 138 meters, but this data is on the local scenic spot introduction board, there is also moisture, and there is a data that is said to be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, with a span of 11892 meters, 88 at its shortest point5 meters, relatively credible. In 2010, scholars from the Natural Arch and Bridge Society (NABS) measured spans of 73 meters and 70 meters according to stricter standards. The bridge deck is less than 80 meters high, about 40 meters thick at its highest, and has a maximum arch span of 366 meters, the narrowest part of the bridge width is about 98 meters, and the width and span are not much different. Judging from its smaller arch height and wider deck, it should have been formed later than the first two Tiansheng bridges, and the arches will definitely be further enlarged in the future.
4. Zhijin rhinoceros looking at the moon, located at 26 ° 46 35 north latitude and 105 ° 52 33 east longitude, is about 16 kilometers northeast of Zhijin County, Guizhou Province, on the ancient river channel on the right bank of the right bank of the Liuchong River, the largest tributary of the Wujiang River, in Guanzhai Township, Guizhou Province, and is a part of the Tiansheng Bridge Group of the Zhijin Cave Scenic Area of the famous Karst Geopark. The most peculiar thing about the rhinoceros Mochizuki is that it has two arches on the same natural bridge, the middle of this natural bridge is curved, the angle is about 100 degrees, and there is an arch on each side, both on the ancient channel of the Qijie River, and the nearest distance is about 50 meters. The northwest arch is larger, with a span of 105 meters, which is the fourth largest natural bridge in the world, and the southeast arch is smaller, but there are also 71 meters, although the small arch can also be among the top ten natural bridges, but this post still counts the two arches as one, and takes the largest span. The highest part of the bridge deck is 157 meters, the thickness is less than 20 meters, the large arch is about 85 meters high, the small arch is about 55 meters high, and the bridge width is about 50 meters at the narrowest point.
5. Zheng'an Lixing Piercing Hole, located at 28°34 41 north latitude, 107°17 35 east longitude, about 15 kilometers west of Zheng'an County, Guizhou Province, about 15 kilometers west of the Wujiang River tributary Furong Jin, a tributary of the Wujiang River, the source of a small stream in the source area of the bridge. The Lixing Piercing Group is the most important piercing group in the Huanyan Mawan Cave System, and the large piercing group is the largest one. The span of the large piercing is 92 meters, which was measured by scholars from the Natural Arch Bridge Society in 2015 by stricter standards, and can at least be regarded as the average span of the piercing. At its narrowest point, it is only a little over 90 meters at its top, and although it is called a piercing because of its span and width, I still classify it as a natural bridge according to the criteria listed at the beginning of this article. This piercing group can be said to be raised in the deep boudoir people do not know, there have been few foreign tourists or scientists who have been close there, so its basic data is not complete, in addition to the above data, I only know that the arch height of the big piercing can reach about 41 meters.
6. Zhijin Tiangu Bridge, located at 26°46 41 north latitude and 105°52 52 east longitude, is on the Qijie River, the right bank tributary of Liuchong River, the largest tributary of the Wujiang River, about 16 kilometers northeast of Zhijin County, Guizhou, and is the most downstream one of the Tiansheng Bridge Group of Zhijin Cave. Tiangu Bridge is also the largest single-arch Tiansheng Bridge in the area of Zhijin Cave, with a span of 90 meters, which is currently the sixth largest known span Tiansheng Bridge in the world, and scholars from the Natural Arch Bridge Society have measured more than 100 meters of data in 2015. The highest part of the Tiangu bridge deck is 137 meters, the thickness is 70 meters, the arch span is about 67 meters high, and the bridge width is about 65 meters at the narrowest point. Tiangu Bridge was originally the east wall of the big notch sinkhole, and the Qijie River originally flowed through the bottom of the sinkhole in the form of an undercurrent flow, and later the rock mass at the top of the river collapsed to form a large slot sinkhole, and under the erosion of the river and the long-term friction and impact of the collapsed body, the pit wall on the east side of the sinkhole and the downstream side of the river collapsed again, forming the Tiangu Bridge. The area around Zhijin Cave has dedicated two of the ten Tiansheng Bridges to us, including the double-arched rhinoceros Mochizuki, which can be regarded as the king of the Tiansheng Bridge Group.
7. Rainbow Bridge, located at 37°4 38 north latitude and 110°57 51 west longitude, is a tributary of the left bank of the Glen Canyon section of the Colorado River near Arizona in the southernmost part of Utah, USA Creek, named after the Rainbow Bridge), is the largest natural bridge in Utah's natural arch complex (the other three natural arches larger than it are not natural bridges), with a span of 71 meters, and an older figure of 84 meters, which is currently the eighth largest known span in the world. The highest point of the rainbow bridge deck is 101 meters, the thickness is 13 meters, the arch span is about 67 meters high, and the bridge width is only 10 meters at the narrowest point. Like the main stream of the Colorado River, its many tributaries cut deep canyons into the Colorado Plateau, and the Bridge Creek, where the Rainbow Bridge is located, flows down from the Navajo Mountain (3,154 meters above sea level), less than ten kilometers to the southeast, and has descended 2,000 meters by the time it reaches the Rainbow Bridge.
8. Sipapu Bridge, located at 37°36 58 north latitude and 110°0 41 west longitude, is the second largest natural bridge in Utah, the second largest natural bridge in the natural arch group in Utah, on the white canyon, a tributary of the Glen Canyon section of the Colorado River, in the southeast of Utah, USA. The arch span of the Spapu Bridge is about 45 meters high, and the height and thickness of the bridge deck are not available, but the thickness is 10-15 meters, and the narrowest part of the bridge deck is only about 10 meters. The largest of the three arch bridges of the Natural Bridges National Monument, the Sparkle Bridge is a popular destination for tourists, although it is not as famous as the Rainbow Bridge.
9. Hazarchishma Natural Bridge, located at 35°17 23 north latitude and 67°0 47 east longitude, is in the Dara-i-Jawzari Gorge in the source area of the Kunduz River, the largest tributary of the Penchi River on the left bank of the Penchi River in the north of Bamiyan Province in north-central Afghanistan, and is eroded by a seasonal river in the valley, with a span of 64At 3 meters, it is currently the tenth largest known span bridge in the world. This Tiansheng Bridge was officially discovered and recorded in 2010, and a more detailed span measurement was carried out the following year, and other data are missing, and it is only known that its altitude is about 3100 meters, which is the highest altitude among the ten Tiansheng Bridges in this post, and the narrowest part of the bridge deck is about 30 meters.