The Beijing–Harbin Expressway (), designated as G1 and commonly abbreviated as Jingha Expressway () is an expressway linking the cities of

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and Harbin,

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...

. The Beijing–Harbin Expressway is commonly referred to as the Jingha Expressway. This name is derived from the two one-character Chinese abbreviations of the two cities at which the expressway terminates, ''Jing'' for Beijing and ''Ha'' for Harbin.

Route

The Beijing–Harbin Expressway runs from

, the national capital, to Harbin, the capital of

Province. It passes through the following major cities: *

Langfang Langfang () is a prefecture-level city of Hebei Province, which was known as Tianjin Prefecture until 1973. It was renamed Langfang Prefecture after Tianjin became a municipality and finally upgraded into a prefecture-level city in 1988. Lang ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

Tangshan Tangshan () is a coastal, industrial prefecture-level city in the northeast of Hebei province. It is located in the eastern part of Hebei Province and the northeastern part of the North China Plain. It is located in the central area of the Boha ...

, Hebei *

Qinhuangdao Qinhuangdao (; ) is a port city on the coast of China in northern Hebei. It is administratively a prefecture-level city, about east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. Its population during the 2020 nationa ...

, Hebei *

Huludao Huludao (), formerly known as Jinxi () until 1994, is a coastal prefecture-level city in southwestern Liaoning province, People's Republic of China. Its name literally means "Gourd Island", referring to the fiddle-shaped contour of the peninsul ...

, Liaoning *

Jinzhou Jinzhou (, ), formerly Chinchow, is a coastal prefecture-level city in central-west Liaoning province, China. It is a geographically strategic city located in the Liaoxi Corridor, which connects most of the land transports between North Chi ...

, Liaoning * Shenyang, Liaoning * Siping,

Jilin Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (P ...

Changchun Changchun (, ; ), Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a ...

, Jilin * Harbin,

History

The first section of the Beijing–Harbin Expressway, opened in the 1990s was the short-lived Jingqin Expressway, running between the outskirts of

and

. In 1990s the expressway was extended northeast from Qinhuangdao to Shenyang and westward to the

4th Ring Road The 4th Ring Road () is a controlled-access expressway ring road in Beijing, China which runs around the city, with a radius of approximately from city centre. The total length of the road is . There are 147 bridges and viaducts that run the l ...

in Beijing to become the Jingshen Expressway. The 658 km expressway from central Beijing to Shenyang was completed in time for the 50th anniversary of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, sli ...

. It opened to the general motoring public on September 15, 1999, after four years of work on different sections. The expressway was extended to Harbin during the rapid expansion of the Chinese expressway system in the 2000s. The completed expressway was opened on September 28, 2001. It is now one of the seven radial expressways emanating from Beijing. Improvements were made to the expressway in 2003 and 2004 by removing several toll stations in 2003 and repairing the previously uneven road surface between the

6th Ring Road The 6th Ring Road () is an expressway ring road in Beijing, China which runs around the city approximately from the center of the city. The 6th Ring Road is approximately long. The road is numbered G4501 and as such is strictly speaking con ...

and Xijizhen in Beijing in 2004. On October 8, 2004, 36 vehicles were involved a horrendous series of car crashes on the expressway. The crashes occurred in the westbound lanes near the interchange with the

Jinji Expressway The Jinji Expressway runs entirely within Tianjin, and links Tianjin city in the south with Ji County in the north. Hence the name Tianjin - Ji County - Jinji Expressway. The expressway runs for 104 kilometres. It opened on 26 September 2003, ju ...

, in the

municipality. Traffic was delayed up for over one and a half hours.

Toll network

When the expressway opened in September 1999, people were complaining about one thing: namely, the ''sheer number'' of toll gates. In some cases, a toll booth appeared every 15 kilometres. It so turned out that the Jingshen expressway was constructed by different organisations, and as a result, each set up their own toll gate. This seemed to be OK at the start, but made traffic awfully slow, as traffic piled up in front of toll gates. The PRC's Ministry of Communications (Transport) stepped in after four years and declared that, effective September 1, 2003, the Baodi toll gate in Tianjin and the Yutian toll gate in Hebei would be demolished, in order to create a networked toll system. Additionally, two expressway toll gates near Shanhaiguan would be merged as one. (Plans also hint that the toll gate at Bailu, Beijing, just east of the Eastern 5th Ring Road, would be gone soon, as soon as Beijing "gets its act together" and joins the networked toll system. The toll gate at Xianghe in Hebei, however, would be kept.) Thus, for the section from Xianghe in western

through to Shanhaiguan in eastern

(and even through the Tianjin portion), this networked toll system applies—one of the first of its kind. This does away with the previous system, where toll booths appeared every time the jurisdiction changed. For some odd reason,

and Liaoning are still not part of the networked toll system. China plans to expand the networked toll system nationwide, starting with the Jingshen expressway as some kind of testing ground. For now, the change is being accepted positively. Average speed on the expressway has gone up, and a May 2004 law on traffic in general raised maximum speed limits on expressways nationwide from 110 km/h to 120 km/h. This makes traffic jams on this expressway either rare, or a thing of the past.

Detailed itinerary

The following is a list of interchanges along the expressway from Beijing to Shenyang.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:G1 Beijing-Harbin Expressway AH1 Expressways in Beijing Transport in Harbin Expressways in Tianjin Expressways in Hebei 01 Expressways in Liaoning Expressways in Jilin Expressways in Heilongjiang