The Great Belt Bridge

The Great Belt Bridge, or Storebæltsbroen in Danish, spans The Great Belt between the islands of Zealand and Funen in Denmark. The Great Belt Bridge is the World's second longest suspension bridge, only surpassed by a later built Japanese bridge. The Great Belt Bridge was built between 1991 and 1998.

The Great Belt Bridge was the bridge that finally took the World record away from the Golden Gate Bridge in California, USA, after its 50 years as record holder.

The span between the two pylons is 1.624 meters, or a little over a mile. The entire bridge span from cable end to cable end is 2.700 meters. The pylons are 254 meters high, 26 meters higher than those of the Golden Gate.

Each cable carrying the bridge is close to 3 kilometers long, and was wowen together by 18.648 individual threads. These threads have then been covered by steel wiring to keep them together and act as an outer shell.

The road crossing the bridge is a highway, which was used by 9.3 million vehicles in 2005. It has greatly lowered the crossing time of the Great Belt. Before the bridge, a ferry ride took an hour plus waiting time at the harbour, today the crossing takes about 7 minutes at the allowed speed limits.

You pay DKK205 or about EUR 27,50 for a car crossing the bridge, at the tollbooths on the Zealand or Eastern side of the bridge. The blue signs are for those paying with credit cards, the yellow ones for manual service.