© Fotolia | mozailla69 By Stefanie Nowak
Tallest bridge:
Millau Viaduct
Location: Tarn Valley, France
Completion: 2004
Carries: 4 lanes of road traffic
Key Facts: Cable-stayed bridge that is supported by 7 concrete piers, each of them supporting an 87-meter-tall mast. From the top of the masts to the deepest point of the structure, the maximum height is 343 m. Total length: 2,460 m, width: 32.05 m.
Remarkable: The bridge is 19 m taller than the Eiffel Tower.
Longest bridge:
Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge
Location: Jiangsu province, China
Completion: 2011
Carries: Rail
Key Facts: Railroad viaduct with a length of 164 km
Remarkable: The bridge is part of the 1318-km-long Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway. The railway line also features the second longest bridge, the Langfang-Qinqxian viaduct, at a length of 114 km.
Widest bridge:
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (East Span)
Location: California, USA
Completion: 2013
Carries: 10 lanes of road traffic and a bike path
Key Facts: Single-tower self-anchored suspension bridge featuring a total deck width of 78.74 m
Remarkable: Belongs to a complex of bridges spanning the San Francisco bay. The so-called Bay Bridge replaced a cantilever bridge between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland that was partly destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Highest bridge:
Beipanjiang Bridge Duge
Location: Between Yunnan province and Guizhou province, China
Completion: 2016
Carries: 4 lanes of road traffic
Key Facts: Cable-stayed bridge that sits 565 m above the Beipan River. Total length: 1,341 m.
Remarkable: First bridge that ever surpassed the 500-m height barrier.
Largest spiral access to a bridge:
Nanpu Bridge
Location: Shanghai, China
Completion: 1991
Carries: Up to 7 lanes of road traffic
Key Facts: Nanpu Bridge is accessed to the west via a spiraling road with a diameter of 180 m.
Remarkable: Cars drive two complete rotations to access the 423-m main span of the cable-stayed bridge over Huangpu River.
Longest suspension bridge:
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge
Location: Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
Completion: 1998
Carries: 6 lanes of road traffic and 4 emergency lanes
Key Facts: Suspension bridge with a length of 3,911 m anchorage to anchorage and a height of 282.8 m.
Remarkable: The bridge that crosses Akashi Strait also holds the records for cable diameter (111.2 cm) and the longest bridge span (distance between support towers: 1,991 m).
Longest canal bridge:
Magdeburg Water Bridge
Location: Near Magdeburg, Germany
Completion: 2003
Carries: Boats, pedestrians, cyclists
Key Facts: Navigable aqueduct with a length of 918 m. The truss bridge connects the Mittellandkanal and Elbe-Havel Canal allowing ships with loads of up to 1,350 t to cross over the Elbe River.
Remarkable: Required 24,000 t of steel and 68,000 cubic m of concrete. Prior to the opening of the water bridge, ships moving from the one canal to the other had to take a 12-km detour by descending into and climbing out of the Elbe.
Highest sky bridge:
Petronas Towers Sky Bridge
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Completion: 1994
Carries: Pedestrians
Key Facts: Double-deck bridge that connects the separate structures of the Petronas Towers at the 41st and 42nd floor. The sky bridge is 170 m above the ground and has a length of 58 m.
Remarkable: The sky bridge is mounted on huge bearings in order to prevent damage by slight oscillating movements of the two towers.
Longest transporter bridge:
Newport Transporter Bridge
Location: Newport, UK
Completion: 1906
Carries: Motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians
Key Facts: The transporter bridge across the River Usk spans 181 m and has a height of 75 m.
Remarkable: The "aerial ferry" is still in use and transports vehicles across the river on a gondola that is suspended from a trolley propelled by a continuous cable.
All the bridges presented above are marked as record-holders in their specific category according to Guinness World Records 2017.
