Bolivia allegedly has the most dangerous road in the world, but we think these roads from China can easily compete with the south Americans.
We’ve found a compiled list of the most dangerous roads in China, although they are not ranked by number of deaths, but more like their sheer ‘badass-ness’ (if such a word exists) Click continue reading to see these roller coaster roads!
Panshan is 20km wide east to west, and 10km long north to south.
213 National Highway
The 213 National Highway runs from Kunming in Yunan province to Lanzhou city in Gansu. Drivers on this road are prohibited from overtaking, overloading their vehicles and are limited to a top speed of 40kph. The road is exceptionally narrow with many twisty turns, the weather over this road is usually cold all times of year.
318 National Highway
The 318 National Highway connects Sichuan province with Tibet. Tibet naturally has some of the harshest terrain in the world, so its not likely to have the best roads leading in and out. The highest point on this road is just less than 4,000m. The state of this road leading into Tibet was one of the major reasons to build the Tibetan railway system to Lhasa, locals say this section of the road has four seasons per day, freezing, cool, warm, hot, which leads to needless injuries.
320 National Highway - Yellow Flower Bridge Section in Jiangxi
This section of the 320 National Highway seems to be the most dangerous! The complete section from top to bottom is just less than 1km, but the hair raising tight turns might make you wish for flat out tarmac.
The Burma Road - 14 Curves
The Burma Road partially goes through Guizhou province links China, Burma and Vietnam together, the road itself also links the foolish man with heaven.
Tian Men Shan Big Gate Road
What can we say about this one? Its the most dangerous road we’ve ever seen. Would we go down it? Noway! Tian Men Shan is located in Hunan province, the road is 10km from top to bottom. The highest point is 1300m above sea level, and the lowest point is 200m, the road took eight years to finish with work starting in 1998, and finishing in 2006. The scenery looks beautiful, but take your eyes off the road for a second, and you’re on the fast way down to the bottom.
Drift anyone??
the aim is to drift past the first corner….anything after that is just a clause in the life insurance policy…lol
I’ve ridden parts of 213, Chengdu to Lanzhou section on a motorbike…….f$@&ing mess it was. With a big bit under construction, mud, ice and potholes big enough to swallow a yak.
The picture there with the mud and snow, 3rd one down…….we had less snow more mud, deeper ruts.
Excellant Post Ash - and I thought the A8 and A11 were bad!
I would be interested to find out which were the most dangerous in terms of accidents/deaths!
Ill look for them! Once saw a tally chart style road death sign in Tibet, it said ‘xxx no of dead on this road so far this year!’
Early autumn, clear day, early in the morning, stone sober. Such are the preferred conditions for negotiating these kind of hill descents. And the climbs are challenging too, as the rock slides present lots of surprises.
I wonder which perceptive Chinese car maker(s) send engineering teams out to places like this for vehicle testing. Does China have a Pikes Peak type climb competition?
Thank you for the great photos Ash.
These are really tiring and dangerous roads… The loops in the bottom left pic on “Tian Men Shan Big Gate Road” must be causing a lot of accidents.
Well, on the screen they look so nice. More hairpins than most alp-pass-roads. But if one knows a bit about chinese road, they become a threat indeed. A pity actually.
Cheers, Michael