Qinghai–Tibet railway
railway line
The Qinghai–Tibet railway or Qingzang railway (Standard Tibetan: མཚོ་བོད་ལྕགས་ལམ།, mtsho bod lcags lam; simplified Chinese: 青藏铁路; traditional Chinese: 青藏鐵路; pinyin: Qīngzàng Tiělù) is a high-elevation railway line in China between Xining, Qinghai Province, and Lhasa, Tibet. With over 960 km (600 mi) of track being more than 4,000 m (13,123 ft) above sea level, it is the highest railway line in the world.
Construction began on the 815 km (506 mi) section between Xining and Golmud in 1958 and was completed in 1984; the remaining 1,142 km (710 mi) from Golmud to Lhasa started construction in 2001 and opened in 2006, making it the first railway line in Tibet. Passenger trains run from Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xining, and Lanzhou, and can carry between 800 and 1,000 passengers during peak season.
In addition to being the world's highest railway, the line is the holder of numerous other records; the line includes the Tanggula Pass, the highest point on a railway in the world at 5,072 m (16,640 ft) above sea level, and Tanggula railway station at 5,068 m (16,627 ft) is the world's highest railway station. The 1,338 m (4,390 ft) long Fenghuoshan tunnel is the highest rail tunnel in the world at 4,905 m (16,093 ft) above sea level.
In 2022, the Chinese government announced plans for the line to be electrified. Construction started in June 2022 and was expected to take three years, at a total cost of 14.84 billion yuan.
Construction
The capital of the Qinghai Province, Xining, became connected with the rest of the country by rail in 1959, when the Lanqing Railway from Lanzhou was completed.
The 815 km (506 mi) section of the future Qingzang Railway from Xining to Golmud, Qinghai opened to traffic in 1984.
The public source identifies “Qinghai–Tibet railway” as railway line. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Qinghai, Tibet and railway.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q233754. VIAF identifies the subject as 143290662. The Library of Congress control number is n2007078280. Authority coordinates are 33.000, 96.000. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1984, 2001 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Qinghai–Tibet railway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.