Stretching across the busy Dardanelles waterway in Turkey, this new suspension bridge is now officially the longest in the world. The structure – which cost £2.1 billion ($2.8 billion) and is 2,023 metres long – was inaugurated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month.
The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge is named after a famous Ottoman victory over British and French forces. It connects Turkey’s European and Asian shores, and takes the title of the world’s longest suspension bridge from Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan (which is a mere 1,992 metres long).
The distinctive red towers that hold the structure together are also the tallest of any suspension bridge. The whole thing wasn’t exactly easy to design, either, as the Dardanelles is always packed with container ships and the land here is prone to seismic activity.
All of which might might you wonder where the longest bridges of any kind are. Well... they’re basically all in China. The longest is the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge, which spans a frankly insane 164 kilometres. And then there’s the Cangde Grand Bridge, which stretches over an incredible 116 kilometres, and the Tianjin Grand Bridge, which comes in at a respectable 113 kilometres. While the five-year construction of 1915 Çanakkale is a big achievement, no suspension bridge will likely ever reach those lengths.
Got five minutes to spare? Want to tell us what life is like in your city? Take the Time Out Index survey here.