The Bohai Strait Tunnel or Dalian-Yantai Tunnel is a proposed

undersea tunnel An underwater tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under the sea or a river. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is unviable, or to provide competition or relief for existing bridges or ferry li ...

construction project across the

Bohai Strait The Bohai Sea () is a marginal sea approximately in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects to the east via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth o ...

to connect

Dalian Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...

on the

Liaodong Peninsula The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the ...

with

Yantai Yantai, Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of ...

on the

Shandong Peninsula The Shandong (Shantung) Peninsula or Jiaodong (Chiaotung) Peninsula is a peninsula in Shandong Province in eastern China, between the Bohai Sea to the north and the Yellow Sea to the south. The latter name refers to the east and Jiaozhou. G ...

. The official name for the project is Bohai Strait Cross-Sea Traffic Way ( zh, 渤海海峡跨海通道). Crossing the

, the tunnel would be long, of which would be underwater. This would exceed the combined lengths of the two longest undersea tunnels on Earth, the

Seikan Tunnel The Seikan Tunnel ( ja, 青函トンネル, or , ), is a dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern isla ...

() and the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

(). The tunnel is planned to run more than under the Strait. Operated by

China Railway Engineering Corporation The China Railway Engineering Corporation (CRECG) is a state-owned holding company of China, which is under the supervision of the State Council. The company is the major shareholder of China Railway Group Limited (CREC), its subsidiary. Hist ...

, the tunnel would be linked to the Chinese high speed railway system. Cars would be loaded on railway carriages to make the 40-minute crossing. Currently, the

Bohai Train Ferry Bohai Train Ferry () is a train ferry service connecting Dalian, Liaoning and Yantai, Shandong in China over the Bohai Sea, which is the northern part of the Yellow Sea. The vessels used are long and have been in operation since 2007. General ...

, inaugurated in 2007, crosses the strait in eight hours. The project was estimated to cost 200 billion yuan (US$32 billion). In August 2014, it was reported that work is likely to commence during the 13th Five-year plan and construction would take ten years to complete. As of March 2018, the central government now wants to get construction underway on this bay connection 'as soon as possible'. Plans were formally submitted to the

National Development and Reform Commission The National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China (NDRC), formerly State Planning Commission and State Development Planning Commission, is a macroeconomic management agency under the State Council, which has br ...

(NRDC) for approval in May 2019. The project would include bridges from Penglai linking the

Changshan Islands (; ), also known as (), and (), is a form of , Chinese robe, which was derived from the Qing dynasty , the traditional dress of the Manchu people, which were worn by Manchu men. The was actually developed by the Han Chinese through the modi ...

, then a tunnel under the main Bohai Strait, for a total length of 125 km. If construction was started in 2020, the opening date would be in the early 2030s. The estimated budget has risen to 300 billion yuan (US$43 billion).

References

{{reflist, 30em Bohai Sea Proposed rail infrastructure in China Proposed undersea tunnels in Asia Rail transport in Dalian Rail transport in Shandong Proposed railway tunnels in Asia

See also

References