Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge across the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait that connects San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean in California. It links the city of San Francisco at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula with Marin County, and it carries U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 along with pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The idea of a fixed link had grown popular by the late nineteenth century, and Joseph Strauss served as chief engineer, with Leon Moisseiff, Irving Morrow and Charles Ellis making major contributions to the design. The bridge opened to the public on May 27, 1937. When it opened it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world. Its main span is 4,200 feet (1,280 m), its towers rise 746 feet (227 m) above the water, and its total length from abutment to abutment is 8,981 feet (2,737 m). The American Society of Civil Engineers lists it among the Wonders of the Modern World, and it has been retrofitted and improved several times since opening.