Passengers arrive at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Thursday. The airport, which was put into operation in June 2021, welcomed its 40 millionth passenger of this year on Thursday. LIU ZHONGJUN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE

China's expressway network had extended to 177,000 kilometers by the end of last year, ranking top in the world, according to the Ministry of Transport on Thursday.

By the end of last year, China's road network reached 5.35 million km, an increase of 1.12 million km over the past decade, said Guo Sheng, deputy head of the ministry's highway bureau.

"In the past decade, historic achievements were made in highway construction and development in China," he said.

During the past 10 years, major national expressways linking big cities have been expanded and upgraded, such as the Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao, Shenyang-Haikou and Shanghai-Kunming.

National expressways with more than six lanes have increased by 18,400 km over the 10 years, he noted.

A great number of major infrastructure projects have been built and created new bench marks for expressway infrastructure, he said.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, one of the world's most challenging infrastructure projects, has been put into operation.

More than 10 bridges spanning the Yangtze River have been built and opened to traffic. The Heihe Bridge, built in cooperation with Russia, has been built and opened to traffic.

The expressway linking Beijing and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region — with a total length of over 2,500 km — was completed.

Mega projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan link have tackled new technologies and achieved breakthroughs, such as being able to construct and place large-sized undersea tubes.

According to the ministry, there were 5.34 billion cross-regional passenger trips last month, a year-on-year increase of 50.2 percent.