How will you go traveling between provinces? Many people may like traveling by train because it's safer and cheaper. Now the high-speed railways connect eastern and western China as well as the south and the north.
A new high-speed railway opened on September 10. 2017. It connects Zhengzhou in Henan province with Xuzhou in Jiangsu province. With this railway, it is the world's longest and makes up 60% of the world's total high speed railway lines. Up to2020, the total length of high-speed railways with a speed over 200 kilometers per hour will be 50, 000 kilometers.
Besides length, China also does well in speed. China is the only country with trains running at 350km an hour such as the Beijing-Tianjin and Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railways. If you want to travel from Xi'an to Chengdu by train, it will take about 16 hours. But from November, 2017, the new Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will shorten this travel time to three hours
With these surprising numbers, it's easy to forget that China wasn't an early starter in the high-speed rail game. Japan started half a century ago, while Germany did 20 years ago. China only began to build its high-speed railways 14 years ago.
Behind the fast development of China's high-speed railways，there is the country's growing need for transportation. China's high-speed trains gave 951 million trips to people last year. It was three times more than 2010. China is among the top runners of high-speed railway technology, with a leading edge in some fields.
"The high-speed railways not only bridge the distance, but also connect people, information and products. It greatly develops the economy in different areas, peoples lives and tourism, "said Huang Xin, an official from the China Railway Company.
Yet, China's building of high-speed railways is still going on. The National Development and Reform Commission said in July that China plans to have 38, 000kmof high-speed railways by 2025.
