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The longest bridge in the world will be finished this year in Kuwait

Can You Wait for It?

The longest bridge in the world will be finished this year in Kuwait

Kuwait's Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Causeway will be the longest bridge in the world when finished. (Courtesy Hyundai E&C)

What will soon be the longest bridge over water in the world is nearing completion in Kuwait, according to KHL. The Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Causeway will stretch over 30 miles total in two parts, spanning Kuwait Bay to shorten the travel distance between Kuwait City and a planned megadevelopment in Subiya to the north.

The $2.6 billion project is part of a massive development effort that could link Kuwait City to a new port and the Subiyah megadevelopment. Now the drive around the bay takes over an hour, but the bridge could shorten that time to less than twenty minutes.

Construction photo of the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Causeway
The bridge’s cable-stayed long span (Courtesy Hyundai E&C)

The causeway features a 1,100-foot-long span with an asymmetric cable-stayed construction that will be the most visually recognizable part of the bridge, aside from its miles and miles of road.

Korean company Hyundai E&C and local consortium Combined Group Contracting Company won the project in 2013, and the project is scheduled to open this year. The extremely short construction time frame for a project of this scale was ambitious and unusual, but Hyundai says that it has met and exceeded timeline expectations.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the span of the bridge to be about 22 miles, when the total span is over 30 miles. The main segment of the bridge is about 22 miles long.

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