Vasco da Gama Bridge

Official name	Vasco da Gama Bridge
Crosses	Tagus River
Locale	Lisbon, Portugal
Design	cable-stayed
Longest span	450 m (1,476 ft)
Total length	12,300 m (40,354 ft)
Width	30 m (98 ft)
Opening date	March 29, 1998

The Vasco da Gama Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge that spans the Tagus River near Lisbon, Portugal. It is the longest bridge in Europe with a total length of 17,200 m (56,381 ft). It crosses the estuary of the Tagus river between Sacavém and Montijo. The bridge was named after Vasco da Gama the Portuguese explorer. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1483x951, 256 KB) Ponte Vasco da Gama a partir de Sacavém File links The following pages link to this file: Vasco da Gama Bridge ... View over Tejo River from Almourol Castle in Portugal (May 2005). ... Lisbon (in Portuguese, Lisboa) is the capital and largest city of Portugal. ... A cable-stayed bridge is a bridge that consists of one or more pillars, with cables supporting the roadbed. ... March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... A cable-stayed bridge is a bridge that consists of one or more pillars, with cables supporting the roadbed. ... View over Tejo River from Almourol Castle in Portugal (May 2005). ... District or region Lisbon Mayor   - Party Carmona Rodrigues PSD Area 84. ... This is a list of the worlds bridges sorted by their full length above land or water. ... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Coat of Arms Montijo (pron. ... Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama (IPA: ; born c. ...

• It has been designed to hold up to an earthquake 4.5 times stronger than the historical 1755 Lisbon earthquake (estimated at 8.7 on the Richter scale).
• It is able to withstand wind speeds of 250 km/h.
• Deepest foundation piles 2.2 m and 1.7 m diameter have been driven down to 85 m under mean sea level.
• The design life expectancy is 120 years.
• Due to the bridge's length it was necessary to take the earth's curvature into account to site the piers correctly (otherwise a mistake of 80 cm would have appeared at the bridge's end).

Work began in 1995 and the bridge was opened to traffic on March 29, 1998, after only 18 months of construction and just before the Expo 98 World's Fair, 500 years after Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route from Europe to India. This 1755 copper engraving shows the ruins of Lisbon in flames and a tsunami overwhelming the ships in the harbor. ... Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ... March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Expo 98 was a Worlds Fair held at Parque das Nações (Park of the Nations) in Lisbon, Portugal from May 22 to September 30, 1998. ... A Worlds Fair is any of various large expositions held since the mid-19th century. ... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ...

The Vasco da Gama Bridge is a toll road that costs €2.15 per vehicle for traffic to Lisbon (northbound). There is no toll for southbound traffic.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Ponte Vasco da Gama

• Structurae.de bridge profile
• BBC news story of bridge opening
• Bridge Pros profile