Wooden Arch Lounge Bridge

Pingnan is well-known as the hometown of wooden arch lounge bridge in China. There, we can see grand and magnificent stone and wooden-structure corridors across mountain streams and rivers, rendering a rainbow-like scene. The first wooden arch lounge bridge in Pingnan was built in the Song Dynasty and represents a traditional folk construction technology in Pingnan. The technological process includes bridge address selection, bridge construction, level measuring, and water column and gate construction. The construction technology of wooden arch lounge bridge in Pingnan symbolizes an outstanding representative of China's rainbow bridge construction. Keeping constant innovation and development in the historical inheritance course, traditional unique process characteristics of eastern Fujian have been developed. Further, the public culture property featured by eastern Fujian styles has made such bridges bear extremely valuable traditional process value. The traditional carpenter techniques of wooden-arched bridges have been included in the List of National Nonmaterial Cultural Heritage.

Built in the Song Dynasty, Wan'an Bridge, as a wooden-arched corridor bridge house with five piers and six apertures, has seen a history of 917 years. 98.2 meters long and 4.7 meters wide, it is designed with boat-shaped piers and unequal spans. The shortest and longest spans is 10.6 meters and 15.2 meters separately. 38-bay bridge house, 156 pillars, steep tenon-through truss and double-layer grey tiles above present wonderful and marvelous process, grand, classical and dignified manner. It deserves the title of China's most representative ancient wooden arch lounge bridge and is of great importance to study ancient bridge buildings.

Built in the Song Dynasty, Baixiang Bridge resides around Baiyang Village at the juncture of Tangkou and Shoushan in Pingnan County, 38 meters long and 4.5 meters wide. Each aperture has a span of 35 meters, only 2.5 meters shorter than that of Zhaozhou Bridge in Hebei Province. There is a 27 meters distance from the bridge floor to the valley floor. The bridge is designed with a four-pillar and nine-purlin tenon-through structure. Its special position among high mountains and lofty hills and span of an individual aperture across dangerous valleys give it the title of "the most dangerous" wooden arch lounge bridge in regions south of the Yangtze River.