At almost twice the height of the Eiffel Tower, a new bridge is set to be the world’s tallest as it stretches between mountaintops and slashes journey times. Scheduled to open in June, the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge will stand 625 metres above the Beipan River in China’s southwestern Guizhou Province.

Motorists will find themselves almost 200 metres higher than New York’s Empire State Building as they travel between the Liuzhi and Anlong areas. Journey time between the two will be cut from around 70 minutes to just 60 seconds.

Construction on the mind-blowing motorway project began in 2022 and is set to be completed after three years at a cost of £216 million. The bridge site will also boast a glass lift in one of its towers leading to a bar and café, while there will be glass floors on the road level for tourists to “float” on.

Alongside these features, the bridge will also have the largest bungee jump in the world, where the walkway reaches a maximum of 620 metres, or 2,020 feet, above the river below.

Chen Jianlei, deputy director of the Guizhou Transport Department, said: “The completion of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge will strengthen economic ties between Guiyang, Anshun and Qianxinan, fostering regional economic integration.”

Zhang Shenglin, a deputy in the 14th National People's Congress, said: “This super project spanning the ‘Earth's crack’ will showcase China's engineering capabilities and boost Guizhou's goal of becoming a world-class tourist destination.

“Its steel trusses weigh about 22,000 metric tons — the equivalent of three Eiffel Towers — and were installed in just two months.”

The bridge is an architectural feat, supported by two main towers which will stretch 262 metres, or 860 feet, into the air. As well as the world’s tallest, it will also become the planet’s largest to be built in a mountainous area.

Spanning 1,420 metres, or 4,650 feet, this latest addition to the area’s infrastructure is one of 30,000 bridges built there since the late 1970s.

This is because 92.5% of the region’s area is covered by mountains and hills, a fact which means nearly half of the world’s top 100 tallest bridges have been built there.

Li Zhao, chief engineer of the project, said: “Witnessing my work becomes something tangible — watching the bridge grow day by day and finally stand tall above the canyon — gives me a profound sense of achievement and pride.”

Wu Chaoming, a senior engineer who worked on the project, said the construction used “the world’s largest span cable hoisting system” to transport steel girder up to the bridge level.

China is also the location of the world’s current tallest bridge, which stretches across the Beipan River 200km, or 120 miles, from where the Huajiang Grand Canyon bridge will stand.

The Beipanjiang Bridge links Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, reducing journey time from over four hours to just one.

It was built over five years and was completed in 2016, before being recognised by Guinness World Records as the planet’s highest bridge in 2018.

However, the Beipan River was home to another tallest bridge in the world in 2003, when the Beipanjiang Guanxing Bridge opened.

It became the first bridge in the world to surpass 1,000 feet, or 304 metres.