NANJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The two ends of the bridge with the world's longest span were connected over China's Yangtze River on Monday.

    The bridge linking two major cities in the eastern Jiangsu Province is being built by the Second Engineering Corp. of the China Road and Bridge Corp. at a cost of 6.45 billion yuan (830 million U.S. dollars).

    Started simultaneously in the cities of Nantong and Suzhou in 2003, the Sutong Yangtze Road Bridge, linking Nantong and Changshuin Suzhou, runs 32.4 kilometers, with 8,146 meters spanning the Yangtze, China's longest waterway.

    It has the world's longest span of 1,088 meters, usurping the previous record holder, the Tatara Bridge in Japan, which has a main span of 890 meters.

    Its steel and concrete bridge towers, the tallest in the world, stand at 300.4 meters.

    Experts say the bridge will serve as a major land link between Nantong, Suzhou and Shanghai after it opens to traffic in 2008. It will also promote economic growth in the Yangtze River Delta and promote tourism.

    Around 150,000 bridges had been built in China over the past 15years, an average of 10,000 a year, said Xu Kuangdi, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

    The bridges, with a total distance of more than 8,300 kilometers, include road and railway bridges, cloverleaf intersections in big cities, and 156.7 kilometers of bridges built on frozen ground for the Qinghai-Tibet railway.