The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon walking bridge in China’s Hunan Province hangs nearly 1,000 feet above the ground and is about 1,400 feet long and about 20 feet wide. However,what’s even more remarkable than it’s impressive size is the fact that the bridge glass-bottomed. And with 10 world records to its name, this architectural masterpiece located in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is finally ready for its opening to the public in July, 2016. By 2017, visitors will also be able to use a 558-foot-long swing, and there will be the world’s highest bungee platform, for jumps up to 853 feet.
Illustration by courtesy of Haim Dotan LTD
The bridge was designed by the Israeli architectural bureau Haim Dotan, and cost about 68 million dollars. It was scheduled to be open late last year, but construction got heavily delayed by rainfall. Constructed in southern China’s Hunan Province, the bridge adorns a region renowned for its sandstone pillars reportedly inspiring the Oscar-winning movie “Avatar.”
The bridge should be capable of holding 800 people at once. To check if it was ready for such an arduous task – a.k.a. to avoid what happened to Yuntai Mountain’s 2-week-old glass bridge – BBC’s Dan Simmons was invited and challenged to smash his way through one of the panels used to form the skywalk:
