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18th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Travel
A road built on a cliff

he wall-hanging highway in Pingshun County, Shanxi Province, China is called "the strangest highway in the world". It took people in Xiakou Village 14 years to dig hard on the cliffs. In the past, if villagers want to see the outside world, they need to climb more than 2,000 steps to the cliff, walk a path more than one meter wide, and circle the mountainside for more than ten miles before they can get out of the mountain. In order to get out of the mountain, people in Xiakou Village gnawed at dry food in the cold wind and opened the road on the cliff with steel and hammer. It took 14 years to build this 1,500-meter-long highway. Because the highway is built in the middle of the cliff, it is called "the highway hanging on the cliff". This is the scene when the road was built.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 05.2007
Date Uploaded: 10.2020
Photo Location: pingshun county, China
Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Copyright: © yongguang Wei