Basically, what’s the biggest manmade thing? Thing being a boat, a building, whatever - the largest manmade item. What is it?
Great wall of China? But then, maybe that would be eclipsed by some interstate or rairway track system…
Define “largest”.
By volume, the Boeing Everett Plant in Washington.
‘Longest’ - probably railways of some kind, or maybe undersea cable systems.
‘Largest’ - if this means ‘heaviest’, then it has to be floating.
The U.S. Interstate Highway system has to be up there. It was developed as one project and it is all seemlessly integrated so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be considered one “thing”.
The U.S. Interstate Highway system is about 42,000 miles long and cost abot $400 billion.
Occupies the most space, with a hollow item including that space as part of it.
In that case, the atmosphere, whose composition we have changed. It encloses the entire Earth.
How about the Panama Canal, or perhaps a man made lake…would they qualify?
If we extend this notion then I’d say wiring is a heck of a lot longer than the highway system. Just electrical wiring alone for power but if you add in data cabling and such it gets even larger. While it was not all done as one single construction project (heck…the Great Wall was not done in one go) it is all interconnected. Stretch it all out and I bet it would be far longer than our highways.
It is very tricky to work out how to define “manmade thing”. Does an item composed of many “manmade things” count as a single “manmade thing”? If not, that rules out almost everything ever made. If so, does that mean that, say, the Greater Tokyo Area is a manmade thing? Because that’s made up of many manmade things, and it’s pretty big.
So if I pee in Lake Superior (thus changing its composition) I can then claim to have “made” it? Put me down as skeptical.
I was thinking along the same lines with my first thought of New York City.
Well…then the Boeing Everett Plant linked above probably is your winner for pure volume.
If you want useable space (i.e. not just hollow space) I am pretty sure The Pentagon is the largest office building (that link says it is). The Merchandise Mart in Chicago is supposedly the largest commercial space. Palace of the Parliament is pretty large too but says it falls behind The Pentagon in total size.
Barry Bonds’ ego.
Ha! I peed in the Pacific! I win!
Yuck - no more Hawaii snorkeling for me.
Having worked in the Boeing Everett plant for a few years, it is big and as designed, much of the space is utilized. There are huge office complexes between each airplane assembly bay. But it is dwarfed by the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest single structure in the US. And a new dam in China is supposedly going to be the most massive structure built by man when it is complete. I can’t find anything in a quick search of the web but I read it will contain enough material to build 3 Great Walls.
I phrased my post poorly. I realize the Everett plant’s space is designed to be used and not just contain large, hollow spaces for no good reason. That said The Pentagon and other buildings are still given the title for largest office buildings as I bet, big as Everett is, The Pentagonn still has more square footage for offices.
The hole in the ozone layer is bigger than Antartica.