Guizhou on the high road to success

For 53-year-old TangHua, a farmer in Daozhen county, Guizhou province, Chongqing is a big city on the other side of a mountain near his home. It used to take six hours to get there. Not any longer. On the last day of 2015, an expressway linking Daozhen to the rest of the province and beyond opened. It was the last county in Guizhou to be linked to the transportation network.

"The muddy mountainous path to Chongqing will be deserted, as well as many old ways of life," said Tang.

Guizhou's rugged and rocky terrain can make traveling a burdensome task, increases transportation costs and aggravates poverty. By the end of 2015, about 4.9 million people in the province lived on less than $1.25 a day, a sharp reduction from the nearly 12 million in 2011.