The Lanzhou–Qinghai railway, abbreviated as the Lanqing railway () was built as the first step of an ambitious plan set by the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

to connect

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

with the rest of China by

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

. LanQing railway, designed in 1956 and built from May 1958 to September 1959, runs 188 Kilometers long, connecting

Lanzhou Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu province in northwestern China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. His ...

, the capital city of

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

province, and

Xining Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...

, the capital city of

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

province. The second step of the original plan is the '' Qingzang railway'', a 1956-kilometer railroad that starts from Xining, first runs west bound to the city of Golmud, also in Qinghai province, and then runs south bound towards Tibet and finally ends in

Lhasa Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China. Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...

. This plan proved to be very challenging as the Qinghai-Tibet plateau is some of the highest terrain in the world. The segment between Xining and

Golmud Golmud, also known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan P ...

, measured 814 kilometers long, was completed in 1979, and became operational in 1984. However, the final segment of the QingZang railway, from Golmud to Lhasa, was put on hold for almost two decades due to the high elevation and complex terrain of the region. This project was revived again in 2001, and was finally completed in October 2005. After signalling work and track testing it was inaugurated on 1 July 2006. Until the opening of the Lanzhou–Xinjiang high-speed railway in 2014, the Lanzhou–Qinghai railway was the only railway that connected the Qinghai-Tibet region with the rest of China. The easternmost section of the high-speed railway, from Lanzhou to Xining, runs roughly parallel to the Lanqing railway.

See also