There were five major stone-masonry arch bridges across the Kotsuki river in Kagoshima City till recently. Two of them were seriously damaged due to heavy rains which fell on the region on Augist 6, 1993. For carrying out the river conservation works and for avoiding the collapse of the remaining three bridges in future, it was decided to move these bridges to a new place. Therefore the bridges were dismembered physically and were investigated in detail.This paper presents a comparative study of those results in relation to stone-masonry arch bridges of China, Korea and Europe. By clarifying the fundamental differences between these arch bridges, an attempt is made to understand the characteristics and the contents of the arch bridges across the Kotsuki river from technological history perspective.
