A suspension bridge consists of a roadway held up by cables that are attached to two towers, and the distance between the two towers is called the span of the bridge.
There are many suspension bridges in the world, but the bridge with the longest span is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which crosses the entrance to New York Harbor.
Completed in 1964, the bridge was named after Giovanni Verrazano, the first European explorer to sail into the harbor and the Narrows, the channel that the bridge spans. The span of the bridge is 4,260 feet, 60 feet longer than the span of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the entire bridge stretches 6,690 feet between its two anchorages on the shores.
At its highest point, the bridge is 228 feet above the water. The two towers are as tall as 70- story buildings, and the span between them is so long that the towers are not parallel to each other, due to the curvature of the earth!
But even this huge bridge will have a short reign as the world’s largest bridge. For a bridge in England, the Humber Estuary Bridge, is due to be opened during the 1980s. This bridge will have a span of 4,626 feet.
Still another bridge being built in Japan will have a span of 5,840 feet, while one planned for Italy will be even longer, with a span of about 6,070 feet and towers as tall as 100-story buildings!
