Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most iconic bridges in the United States, and has been called one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The bridge spans the Golden Gate, a strait between San Francisco and Marin County to the north, and is one of the major road routes into and out of the city.


The masterwork of architect Joseph B. Strauss, whose statue graces the southern observation deck, the bridge took seven years to build, and was completed on May 27, 1937. The bridge is painted a deep red-orange color known as "International Orange," also known as "Orange Vermillion." The color was specifically chosen to make the bridge more easily visible through the thick fog that frequently shrouds the bridge. The bridge is only painted once every few years, but touch up work is done continuously by a team of 40 painters.

Quick facts: Opened May 27, 1937 // Length 1.71 miles // Width 90 feet

Structure
The weight of the roadway is hung from two cables that pass through the two main towers and are fixed in concrete at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. There are 80,000 miles (129,000 km) of wire in the main cables.[23] The bridge has approximately 1,200,000 total rivets.