The world’s longest mountain escalator has been unveiled in China

The city of Chongqing in Southwestern China is characteristic for its mountainous terrain and its extremely high population density. The city boasts a number of impressive architectural structures and infrastructure projects: the deepest subway station, a railway line suspended between two residential buildings, a series of iconic skyscrapers and one of the steepest escalators in Asia, the “Crown Grand Escalator”, 112-meters long and 53-meters high. 

In February 2026 at the Chinese New Year, the Wushan Goddess Escalator has come to surpass this record. A system of escalators with total length of 905 meters, it consists of 21 escalators, 8 elevators, 4 moving walkways and 2 suspended crossings, allowing to ascend more than 240 meters of height difference. It connects the neighborhoods near the Yangtze River with those on the mountain slopes surrounding the city, built on multiple levels. Before the construction of the Wushan Goddess Escalator, about one hour was necessary to ascend the steep paths, whilst today one can travel it in just 20 minutes. 

Apart from its function to transport residents and visitors, the infrastructure has been designed to also incorporate and highlight the city’s landscape: viewing points and observation platforms along the route, in combination with the glass finishing elements which minimize visual interference, they allow unobstructed an view of the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges are believed to be the place where the mythical Goddess Yaoji acted, after whom the project has been named. 

The Wushan Goddess Escalator is part of a genealogy of architectural structures which transform the sloped topography into habitable space, applying a recurring design strategy in many Chinese cities built on multiple levels: instead of levelling the landscape, they promote the installation of vertical transportation infrastructure with reformulate the sensory perception of the topography and redefine its relation to the built environment.

Article source: https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2026/03/16/world-longest-urban-escalator-chongqing.html

Image source: https://greekreporter.com/2026/03/19/china-unveils-worlds-longest-escalator/