Officials attend the inauguration ceremony of the new covered bridge in Nantou county, Taiwan on Feb 23. [Photo/WeChat: zjtbztwx]

A covered bridge was completed in Nantou, Taiwan on Feb 23 under joint efforts of the central Taiwan county and Taishun in Zhejiang province.

Taishun is described as the hometown of China's covered bridges. Currently, there are 46 bridges of this kind in the county and their history can be traced back to the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

In 2017, some cultural associations in Zhejiang and Taiwan decided to build a covered bridge together to mark the increasingly closer ties between the two regions.

The construction of the timber-truss bridge in Nantou, led by Zeng Jiakuai, an inheritor of the bridge-building techniques from Taishun, started in October 2017 with all materials transported from Zhejiang. The whole building process took 16 months in total.

At the inauguration ceremony, Lin Ming-chen, director of Nantou county, said the new covered bridge is a testament to the friendship of Zhejiang and Nantou, and the county will uphold the 1992 Consensus and constantly promote closer communications with the Chinese mainland, especially Zhejiang.

Xu Peng, deputy director of Zhejiang's culture and tourism department, said the bridge is a demonstration of a shared Chinese culture and extended hope that the bridge could cement the friendship between the two sides.