Longest Railway Tunnels in the World

Route Rankings

The world's longest railway tunnels are engineering marvels that took decades to plan and build. They enable high-speed trains to cross mountain ranges and seas that were previously impassable by rail.

#	Name	Value	Description
1	Gotthard Base Tunnel	57.1 km	The world's longest and deepest railway tunnel, crossing beneath the Swiss Alps, opened in 2016 after 17 years of construction.
2	Seikan Tunnel	53.9 km	Undersea tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido beneath the Tsugaru Strait, now carrying Hokkaido Shinkansen trains.
3	Channel Tunnel	50.5 km	Undersea tunnel connecting England and France beneath the English Channel, carrying Eurostar and freight shuttles.
4	Ceneri Base Tunnel	15.4 km	Southern complement to the Gotthard Base Tunnel, completing the flat route through the Swiss Alps, opened in 2020.
5	Lotschberg Base Tunnel	34.6 km	The first base tunnel through the Swiss Alps, connecting Bern with the Valais via a flat route since 2007.
6	Guadarrama Tunnel	28.4 km	Twin-bore tunnel through Spain's Sierra de Guadarrama mountains on the Madrid-Valladolid high-speed line.
7	Taihang Tunnel	27.8 km	China's longest railway tunnel on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan passenger-dedicated line through the Taihang Mountains.
8	Iwate-Ichinohe Tunnel	25.8 km	Japan's longest land tunnel on the Tohoku Shinkansen line between Morioka and Hachinohe in northern Honshu.
9	Hakkoda Tunnel	26.5 km	On the Tohoku Shinkansen extension, this tunnel passes through heavy snowfall regions in Aomori Prefecture.
10	Pajares Base Tunnel	24.7 km	Twin-bore tunnel through Spain's Cantabrian Mountains on the Variante de Pajares high-speed line in Asturias.

Methodology

Ranked by total tunnel length in kilometers. Only tunnels carrying regular passenger rail services are included.

Quick Facts

Category	Route Rankings
Entries	10
Unit	km

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