Daliangshan No vs Muzhailing: length, opening date and class compared

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Side by side

Daliangshan No is recorded on data/tun10.html and Muzhailing on data/tun10.html, compiled to the same convention, which is what makes the two figures comparable at all.

How this archive measures: lengths, bores, dates and ordering

How this table is compiled

Neither holds the record: Laerdal at 24.51 km is the longest road tunnel recorded here, 9.14 km ahead of Daliangshan No. This archive separates 4 classes of structure and both entries here are indexed under road tunnel, which decides the table each is ranked in and the convention its length was measured by.

That gap is about 1 per cent of the longer bore, which is the figure worth holding on to rather than the raw metres. Driven end to end the two would run 30.59 km, which is the figure to hold against the 24.51 km of the longest single road tunnel in the record.

Daliangshan No and Muzhailing are compared here on the figures this archive records for each, taken from the same sources and the same measurement convention. 15 other structures in this record opened within two years of Daliangshan No, which is the cohort it was designed alongside and the fairer comparison for how it was built.

Across every class this archive records, Daliangshan No stands 65th by length and Muzhailing 69th, so the pair sits inside the top 69 of 244 structures. Counting every class, 3 recorded structures fall between these two by length; the comparison is a window on that part of the record rather than a gap in it.

Daliangshan No is the longer of the two at 15.37 km, ahead of Muzhailing at 15.23 km, a difference of 0.14 km. The 2020s account for 26 entries in this archive, and Muzhailing is one of them, which is the context a single opening date does not carry on its own.

Reading the figures

Both belong to the 2020s, so the two were specified against the same expectations and the length difference is not standing in for a change of era. Both pass ten kilometres, which 161 of the 244 structures recorded here manage, so this is a comparison inside a small group rather than across the field.

Both are recorded in this archive as road tunnels, so the measurement convention is identical and the comparison is direct. An immersed tube is built on land and sunk into a dredged trench, so its length is fixed before it reaches the water. Salt water attacks reinforcement differently from fresh, and subsea linings are specified accordingly.

Among the road tunnels this archive records, Daliangshan No stands 9th by length and Muzhailing 10th, adjacent in the ranking. The first long bores were driven by hand and gunpowder, and their alignments still show it. Published lengths for the same structure differ by a few metres between sources, depending on whether cut-and-cover approaches are counted.

64 recorded structures are longer than Daliangshan No, the nearest of them Furka Base tunnel at 15.44 km. A short bore beneath a city can cost more than a long one through a mountain. Overburden at the deepest point sets the lining, and on a long crossing it varies more than the length suggests.

Daliangshan No was designed under the modern regime, with cross-passage spacing and emergency ventilation specified from the outset. Metres are the unit throughout. Blank cells mean the value is not on record. Both figures come from the same archive and the same convention. Portal design follows avalanche and rockfall exposure rather than architectural intent.