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On December 25, 1954, the Qinghai-Xizang Highway and Sichuan-Xizang Highway connected Lhasa at the same time, by which ended the history of Xizang without highway access.

Golmud, once a desolate wasteland on the northern slope of the vast Kunlun Mountains. In the spring of 1954,General Mu Shengzhong brought this city into existence with a shovelful of soil. The three tents they lived marked the start of this city.

At that time, according to the policy of “marching while constructing” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), General Mu Shengzhong led a large contingent of road builders to start to construct the world-famous Qinghai-Xizang Highway based on Golmud. In 1955, the CPC Xizang Working Committee decided to establish the Management Department of Qinghai-Xizang Highway (predecessor of the Xizang Office in Golmud) in Golmud. It would be responsible for maintaining the Highway and transporting goods and materials entering Xizang based on Golmud. Golmud started to be built to serve as the Xizang Logistics Base.

Since then, Golmud has become busy. Countless people from different places in China have come here to pursue and realize their dreams of entrepreneurship, bringing changes at an unimaginable speed to Golmud. The completed Qinghai-Xizang Highway has been hailed as the “Suez Canal on the Roof of the World”, responsible for transporting more than 80% of goods and materials entering Xizang.

In 1985, asphalt surface was paved for the Qinghai-Xizang Highway, which has then become a highway with the highest elevation, longest line, and highest standard in the world today. With the Highway’s completion, the distance that used to take several months by foot now can be reached in only days.

At present, you can have a magical and wonderful sightseeing tour when you take a car on the Qinghai-Xizang Highway from Lhasa to Golmud. Fully-equipped, beautiful, and practical buildings have replaced the simple adobe and wooden barracks in the past. Heavy trucks with a load capacity of 30-50 tons have replaced smallones in the past long before. The transport efficiency of a single truck has increased by several times. In 2021, a two-way four-lane expressway with a total length of 295 kilometers and a speed per hour of 120 kilometers was built for the Lhasa-Nagqu section of the Qinghai-Xizang Highway.

In the last 70 years, the Qinghai-Xizang Highway has brought well-being to people in Xizang. The road has continuously been upgraded and modernized. The Qinghai-Xizang Highway is really a “golden bridge of happiness” leading to Xizang!