The bridge opened to the public in 2022
Traveling is fun right? But the one thing a lot of us complain about when globe trotting is the actual traveling part.
Sitting for hours on end in cramped spaces, broken sleep and bad food, if there was a way for us to cut our traveling time in half and still make it to all the beautiful destinations the world has to offer, we’d take it right?
Well, what if I told you there’s a bridge that connects Europe with Asia and cuts a journey time by a whopping 93 percent?
Sounds ideal, right?
Turkish officials had the same train of thought so decided to build the world’s longest suspension bridge in the from of the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge.
The bridge connects Europe and Asia. Why are more people not talking about this?! (Burak Akay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The extremely long piece of road stretches across the length of the Dardanelles Strait, a passage of water connecting the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara in that part of the world.
The bridge connects Gelibolu, in the European side of Turkey, with the town of Lapseki found in the Asian region in the country.
Connecting two continents with tarmac, the hugely impressive bridge means those passing between the two places no longer need to take a ferry, taking approximately 90 minutes to get to the other side.
Now, those who use the bridge get to the other side in just six minutes.
Can you imagine?!
Missed your flight? Don’t worry, we’ll take the bridge. Maybe it’s not that simple but it’s a nice thought. (KSChong / Getty Images)
Opening in 2022, the bridge constructed by both Turkish and South Korean companies only took five years to complete.
Though it was rather pricey, at a cost of $2.7 billion.
“Turkey has overtaken Japan, which has the longest bridge in the world in terms of the midspan, and has taken the first place,” said President Erdogan during the inauguration ceremony.
South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum added: “The 1915 Canakkale Bridge will leave this history of collision and conflict behind and will be a bridge between East and West, starting a new era of peace and prosperity.”
The bridge has plenty of symbolism to mark its importance and many nods to the history of Turkey.
For example, its size of 2,023 meters pays homage to the year 2023, the year the country celebrated the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic.
Even the height of the bridge has some meaning behind it, with 318 meters symbolizing the date of March 18 when Turkey commemorates the soldiers killed during Gallipoli.
If you’ve ever wondered why there are no bridges in other areas of the planet, experts have been weighing in.
For example, wouldn’t it make sense to have a bridge over the 4,000-mile long Amazon river?
The bridge opened in 2022 and has broken records. (Burak Akay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Well, that’s not really a possibility, even though it would seem like an obvious decision to make.
Speaking to Live Science, Walter Kaufmann, chair of Structural Engineering (Concrete Structures and Bridge Design) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, said the explanation is simple: “There is no sufficiently pressing need for a bridge across the Amazon.”
Despite its length, many of the areas located near the river are sparsely populated.
As a result, there aren’t any major roads for a bridge to connect to.
