Bridges presentation
Because structural concepts of
suspension, cantilever, and arch were first developed there with great sophistication, every effort
should be made to identify surviving examples (Figure 2). China was the origin of many bridge
forms: Marco Polo told of 12,000 bridges built of wood, stone, and iron near the ancient city of Kin-
sai. The first chain-link suspension bridge, the Panhogiao or Panho Bridge (c 206 BC), was built by
General Panceng during the Han Dynasty. In 1665, a missionary named Kircher described another
chain-link suspension bridge of 200ft (61m) made up of twenty iron links, a common bridge type
built during the Ming Dynasty that was not adapted until the 19th century in America and Europe.
China's oldest surviving bridge, and the world's oldest open-spandrel segmental arch, is the
Zhaozhou Bridge (c AD 605), attributed to Li Chun and built south-west of Beijing in Hebei
Province during the Song Dynasty
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