50 Fun Facts About Bridge

In which year did the Golden Gate Bridge open to the public?

At the time it was both the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world, titles it kept until 1964 and 1998 respectively.

What is the official name of the Golden Gate Bridge's colour?

Architect Irving Morrow picked it over a US Navy suggestion of black and yellow stripes for visibility.

How long is the Golden Gate Bridge's main span?

Chief engineer Joseph Strauss had once designed a 55-mile railway bridge across the Bering Strait for his thesis.

Which 1964 New York crossing took the Golden Gate's title as the world's longest suspension span?

It held the record until Britain's Humber Bridge in 1981, and its name was misspelled with one z until 2018.

Which annual event has started on the bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn since 1976?

It is one of the only times the bridge is closed to cars. It was misspelled 'Verrazano' officially from 1960 to 2018.

Which waterway does the Brooklyn Bridge cross?

Opened in 1883, it was the first fixed crossing of the river and an early steel-wire suspension bridge.

Which engineer completed the Brooklyn Bridge, assisted by his wife Emily, after his father John died?

He was left bedridden by decompression sickness from the caissons, and Emily relayed his instructions to the site for years.

How did P. T. Barnum help prove the Brooklyn Bridge was safe in 1884?

Jumbo led the parade. It calmed public doubts after a stampede on the bridge had killed twelve people the year before, and it was free advertising for the circus.

Tower Bridge in London combines suspension spans with what kind of opening central section?

Horace Jones designed it and it opened in 1894. The central bascules lift to let ships through.

In the 2020s, roughly how many times a year is Tower Bridge's central section raised?

In its first year they went up 6,160 times, about seventeen a day, when the Thames was still a working port.

What is the Sydney Harbour Bridge's nickname?

British firm Dorman Long of Middlesbrough built it, borrowing from its own Tyne Bridge design. It opened in 1932.

How many hand-driven rivets hold the Sydney Harbour Bridge together?

All Australian-made, and the last was driven through the deck on 21 January 1932.

Who slashed the ribbon at the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening in 1932 before the premier could cut it?

He was on horseback, in uniform, protesting that a royal had not been invited. He later sued the police for wrongful arrest and won.

Which Japanese crossing, opened in 1998, had the world's longest suspension span at 1,991 metres?

It shrugged off the 1995 Kobe earthquake mid-construction. Turkey's Çanakkale Bridge beat it by 32 metres in 2022.

The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge since 2022, crosses which strait?

Its 2,023-metre main span commemorates the 1915 Gallipoli campaign in its name.

Which country's Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge, at 164.8 km, is the longest bridge in the world?

It is a viaduct on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and has held the Guinness record since 2011.

Which British architect designed France's Millau Viaduct, long the world's tallest bridge?

Its structural height is 343 metres, taller than the Eiffel Tower. Engineer Michel Virlogeux led the design.

Jewellers have held Ponte Vecchio's shops since the 1590s. Who occupied them originally?

It was the only bridge in Florence the retreating Germans spared in 1944. The current structure dates from about 1345.

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of how many bridges across Venice's Grand Canal?

Antonio da Ponte's stone single-span replaced earlier wooden bridges and was finished in 1591.

Venice's Bridge of Sighs connects the Doge's Palace with what?

The romantic idea that prisoners sighed at their last view of Venice was a 19th-century invention popularised by Byron.

By legend, at exactly what time did Charles IV lay the first stone of Charles Bridge in 1357?

The emperor was a numerologist and 1357 9/7 5:31 makes a palindrome. Thirty statues line the bridge, all now replicas.

The Øresund Bridge links Sweden with which country?

It runs 8 km to the artificial island of Peberholm, then a 4 km tunnel finishes the crossing to Copenhagen's side. It opened in 2000.

Scotland's Forth Bridge, opened in 1890, is what type of railway bridge?

It had the longest cantilever span in the world until Canada's Quebec Bridge in 1919 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The bridge at Ironbridge, Shropshire, opened in 1781, was the world's first major bridge of what?

Abraham Darby III cast the ironwork at Coalbrookdale, cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

The Pont du Gard in southern France was built by the Romans to carry what?

Its aqueduct ran over 50 km. The three tiers of arches stand 48.8 metres high and it has been a UNESCO site since 1985.

What nickname did construction workers give the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge for how it moved in the wind?

It opened on 1 July 1940 and tore itself apart in a 40 mph wind on 7 November the same year.

What was the only fatality when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940?

He was left in a stranded car and bit the man who tried to rescue him. Physics textbooks still argue over resonance versus aeroelastic flutter.

The Mackinac Bridge, the 'Mighty Mac', connects the two peninsulas of which US state?

Opened in 1957, it is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. Before it, only ferries linked the two.

How long is Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, opened in 1964?

Two tunnels let shipping pass over the crossing. It replaced ferries that had run since the 1930s.

Canada's Confederation Bridge links the mainland to which province?

Islanders called it 'the Fixed Link' before it was named. It opened in 1997 and runs 12.9 km.

An 1830s London Bridge was bought in 1968 by Robert McCulloch and rebuilt in which US state?

Only the exterior granite blocks made the trip, to face a new bridge at Lake Havasu City. The story that he thought he was buying Tower Bridge is a myth.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the world's longest sea crossing, is roughly how long?

It is a system of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel and four artificial islands, finished in 2018.

Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge, connecting Europe and Asia, was renamed after which event?

It is now officially the 15 July Martyrs Bridge. When it opened in 1973 it had the longest span outside the United States.

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge over the Tyne was the first bridge in the world to do what?

Its shape and motion earned it the nickname the 'Blinking Eye Bridge'. It opened in 2001.

Which Ottoman bridge in Bosnia was destroyed by shelling in 1993 and reopened in 2004?

Mostar is named after the 'mostari', the keepers of the bridge. Divers still leap from it into the Neretva.

Vietnam's Golden Bridge near Da Nang, opened in 2018, appears to be held up by what?

The hands are actually fibreglass and wire mesh. The 150-metre footbridge loops almost back on itself in the Ba Na Hills.

Lucerne's Kapellbrücke, Europe's oldest covered wooden bridge, was badly damaged by what in 1993?

Many of its 17th-century interior paintings were lost. The bridge dates from about 1365 and was part of the city's fortifications.

The Mycenaean Arkadiko Bridge in Greece, one of the oldest surviving bridges, dates to roughly when?

It is a corbel arch and is still in existence. China's Anji Bridge, from around 600 AD, is the world's oldest open-spandrel stone arch.

In the card game contract bridge, how many players sit at the table?

They play in two partnerships, partners sitting opposite each other, with a standard 52-card deck.

Which American railroad heir set out the rules of contract bridge in 1925?

Within a few years his version had so displaced auction bridge that 'bridge' simply meant contract bridge. He also won the America's Cup three times.

Despite its name, the Pont Neuf is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in which city?

Pont Neuf means 'New Bridge'; it was named to set it apart from older bridges lined with houses, and was inaugurated by Henry IV in 1607.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge is based on a design by which Victorian engineer?

He died in 1859 without seeing it finished; colleagues completed it in 1864 as his memorial, partly using chains from his demolished Hungerford bridge.

Roughly how long is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest continuous span over water?

The Louisiana crossing runs from Metairie to Mandeville on 9,500 concrete pilings; Guinness split its record into 'continuous' and 'aggregate' categories in 2011.

What world record did Colorado's 955-foot-high Royal Gorge crossing hold from 1929 to 2001?

It was built in six months purely as a tourist attraction, not a transport route, and a Chinese bridge finally surpassed it in 2001.

Si-o-se-pol, the 'bridge of thirty-three spans', crosses the Zayanderud in which Iranian city?

Formally the Allahverdi Khan Bridge, it is the largest of eleven historic bridges on the river and stacks two rows of 33 stone arches.

Wales's Pontcysyllte, completed in 1805 by Telford and Jessop, is the world's highest what?

It carries the Llangollen stretch of the Ellesmere Canal over the River Dee in a cast-iron trough on 19 arches and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What is the structural height of the Millau Viaduct, the world's tallest bridge for 20 years?

Engineer Michel Virlogeux led the design with Norman Foster; the cable-stayed crossing of the Tarn valley opened to traffic in December 2004.

Kolkata's Howrah Bridge was officially renamed in 1965 after which Nobel laureate?

The cantilever bridge over the Hooghly became Rabindra Setu, though almost nobody uses the name; it carries some 100,000 vehicles a day.

Japan's Kintai Bridge, built in 1673 at Iwakuni, crosses the Nishiki River on how many arches?

For nearly 300 years its versions stood without metal nails, and a special tax funded rebuilding the middle spans every 20 years and the end spans every 40.

Lisbon's 25 de Abril Bridge was renamed after the 1974 revolution. Whom did it honour before?

The dictator ordered its construction and it opened as Ponte Salazar in 1966; its builders had earlier worked on the San Francisco Bay Bridge.