Yangtze River Delta races ahead as integration model

To complete his Chinese bucket list, Dominican student Danzel Djimon Dangleben wants to travel from Shanghai to see major attractions in three nearby provinces.

The 26-year-old, who is studying Chinese at Tongji University in Shanghai, hopes to see firsthand "the sea of clouds" on the peaks of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui province, discover the beauty of Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang province, and take a close look at a two-stringed bowed erhu in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. He was excited to learn he can reach all three destinations by taking the "super loop" high-speed rail service.

"There is no high-speed railway in my home country, so it is an extremely novel and special experience for me to travel by the high-speed trains, taking me from one city to another within a few hours or even dozens of minutes," he said.

Dangleben can speak Chinese quite fluently after studying for nine months, and plans to visit a variety of scenic spots near Shanghai during the summer vacation. The high-speed railway loop is the first of its kind in the region and links key cities as well as scenic spots.

With 21 stations in major cities across the Yangtze River Delta region, the railway loop stretches for more than 1,200 kilometers and is regarded as a major achievement in the area's integration.

By linking Shanghai and the provincial capitals of Nanjing in Jiangsu, Hefei in Anhui province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang, the super loop is expected to facilitate exchanges across the region and promote economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta.

In its first-month of operation, the super loop recorded about 110,000 passenger trips, with its average occupancy rate reaching 90 percent, news portal ThePaper.cn reported, citing the China Railway Shanghai Group.