World's Longest Sea Bridge Is Open For Business!

On June 30th, the world's longest sea-bridge that connects the sprawling suburb of Huang Dao to the eastern port city of Qingdao in China, opened amidst much fanfare. The 26.4 mile, six-lane Quingdao Haiwan Road Bridge is expected to be crossed by about 30,000 cars daily, cutting their commute time by almost an hour.

Supported by 5,200 columns, the impressive bridge is strong enough to withstand both earthquakes and typhoons. Constructed simultaneously from both ends and connected in the middle, it was completed in four short years by 10,000 workers who worked around the clock. While nobody knows the exact cost of this engineering marvel, it seems to range anywhere between a paltry $1billion to an astounding $8.8billion USD!

Prior to this, Louisiana's 23.83 mile long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, held the title for the world's longest sea bridge. And, while the Guinness Book of Records has officially recognized the Chinese bridge, the folks in Louisianaare not convinced. According to them, while the overall length of the Quingdao Haiwan Road Bridge may be 2.5 miles longer, only 16 miles of it span over the water, whereas the Causeway is almost entirely over the sea.

While there may be some technical issues here, there is no argument about China being home to the world's two longest bridges overall - Part of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an High-Speed Railway, the 102-mile long Danyang-Kunshan Grand Railway Bridge spans over six rivers, while the 71-mile long Tianjin Grand Bridge connects the provinces of Langfang and Qingxian. And that's not all - The country is currently home to eleven of world's 15 longest bridges - All built to alleviate traffic woes in the world's most populous State.

Resources: newsfeed.time.com, dailymail.co.uk,gilygily.com