The bridge links Shanghai to the industrial city of Ningbo across Hangzhou Bay, cutting the distance between them from about 250 miles to just 50 miles.
Officials welded together a final section to complete the link at a ceremony attended by several hundred workers from the various companies building the bridge.
Costing 11.8 billion yuan (£0.77 billion), the structure will open to traffic next year following completion of the six-lane roadway that will permit vehicles to travel at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour.
The bridge, a mix of viaducts and cable-stayed spans to allow shipping to pass beneath, lies just south of the Yangtze River Delta, one of China's most economically vital regions which is undergoing a massive construction boom aimed at boosting transport links.
Just north of Shanghai, builders this month connected the final link in a 20.13-mile bridge across the Yangtze, said to be the longest cable-stayed structure of its kind.
The 20.2-mile Donghai Bridge had been the previous longest sea-crossing structure, linking Shanghai to the massive Yangshan deep water port.
Construction on the Hangzhou Bay Bridge began in 2003 with a percentage of its financing coming from private sources, a first for such a large Chinese infrastructure project.
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