That was my first thought when I read the title to this thread. When I was in New Zealand a few years ago I told someone I was from Tacoma and all he knew about the city was the bridge that fell down.
I’m fairly certain that **Darren Garrison **actually meant the Golden Gate Bridge. Many people don’t realize that the Bay Bridge is an entirely different bridge.
Looking up the most famous bridge on Google, it appears that the Golden Gate and Tower Bridge are generally the top contenders. Of course I had to support my hometown favorite.
I’m a little surprised that one other bridge that comes up on a lot of lists hasn’t been mentioned here yet: The Rialto.
I doubt if Google is worthwhile evidence; due to their wretched personalization and tailoring, everyone and every country gets a different set of results based on what Google thinks is suitable.
People on Turkish Google not only get a different classifying than Danish Google, but get a different result than each other.
Actually I was recently looking up minimizing location awareness by these creeps, and hilariously the answer was to ( always ) sign in to Google.
No chance of them knowing where you are then !
For what it’s worth, I think few people outside the U.S. know the Brooklyn Bridge; but most know the Golden Gate (by sight if not by name).
Bridges I remember: (in no particular order)
Ponte Vecchio
magere brug
pont neuf
tower bridge
Pont d’Avignon
Viaduc de Millau
Erasmusbrug
Golden Gate Bridge
I imagine what is meant is which bridge would be mentioned by the most people in a theoretical worldwide survey.
And given that, I agree that the Golden Gate Bridge is the winner. (Plenty of people are going to name some bridge in their town or country, but I expect the Golden Gate Bridge is going to be named by more people than any other.
Bridge to Terabithia ?
Other famous Bridges I haven’t seen mentioned yet include the one on the River Kwai, Khazad-dûm, Lloyd, Beau, and Jeff.
The first that came to mind when I read the title was the Brooklyn Bridge (I do live in NYC), then the Golden Gate, then the Sydney Harbour, Charles in Prague, London Tower. Then the Bridge of Sights and the Ponte Vecchio. Then I figured time was up and stopped thinking.
Cool but Pittsburgh had the Bridge to Nowhere.
My FIL is a Chinese civil engineer who has designed and built many bridges. I asked him and two colleagues this question. The answer was Golden Gate, no hesitation, from any of the three. When my father in law first came to visit the US, the first place he wanted to go see was the Golden Gate Bridge. It was 2300 miles away, and he’d just gotten off an 18 hour flight. But a week later we flew to San Francisco.
I think if you ask a random person in Asia they are most likely not to even know what the Brooklyn Bridge is, but virtually guaranteed to have some idea what the GGB is.
Well, I can’t let some damned Pittsburgher brag about a local bridge without calling out Cleveland’s 1932 Art Deco **Lorain-Carnegie Bridge **, with its magnificent 50-foot “Guardians of Transporation” gracing the colossal pylons.
Bonus…the west end lets out directly to the superb West Side Market, where you can stock up on local produce, homemade pierogis, kielbasa, local dairy, fresh poultry and fish and meat, pastries, roasted nuts, fresh bread, and stop at “Johnny Hot Dog” at the SW corner for the best chili dog in the Rust Belt. The stand at the NW corner will sell you an excellent bratwurst on a hard roll – not Sheboygan standard, and dressed with brown mustard and kraut instead of raw onion and dill pickle, but still damn good.
If you have to link to the Wikipedia article (or some other web page) about the bridge you’re suggesting, it’s not that famous.
Let’s face it, half the posts in any thread asking “what’s the most famous X” are going to describe “a cool X that is so non-mainstream you probably haven’t even heard of it”. Bridge hipsters.
Bear in mind that there’s a huge Chinese-American population in the Bay Area, which when amplified by extensive Chinese family networks probably means that the average Chinese person is more likely to be familiar with the Golden Gate Bridge than other Asians.
I agree that the Brooklyn Bridge is not well known outside the U.S. I’m less certain about how the GGB compares to Tower Bridge for visual familiarity for the average non-American. I’d guess that they are probably pretty close.
I’ve driven it. The unusual thing about it is that the roadway is not concrete; it’s a steel grid, because of all the freezing and thawing in the winter, and you can see right through it to the water below.
On the other hand, there’s nearly a billion and a half people in China, so once you’ve got them on side, it’s pretty much game over for anyone else’s candidate.
Any opinions on how well the GGB is known in India? That’d clinch it…
India has a lot of bridges longer than the Golden Gate: if smaller I would imagine Indian peasants — who may only barely have heard of America — are more likely to think of the Shahi Bridge in Jaunpur. A fine Mughal ( Afghani architect ) structure.
Bridges are fascinating things.
Voted for the Golden Gate, though I have a soft spot for Monty Python’s Bridge of Death.