Magdeburg Water Bridge, Magdeburg, Germany

Magdeburg Water Bridge, Magdeburg, Germany

This unique bridge–a water bridge across water–connects East and West Germany over the River Elbe near the Town of Magdeburg, close to Berlin. Completed in 2003, it connects Berlin's inland harbor with the ports along the Rhine river. Several news reports cite the bridge as being Europe's largest water bridge as well as the longest navigable aqueduct in the world. "Two important German shipping canals have been joined by a giant kilometer-long concrete bathtub," wrote Deutsche Welle, a German media company. The waterway was more than 80 years in the planning, the company said, as construction started in the 1930s, but was halted during the Second World War. The bridge took six years to build at a cost of about half a billion euros, and will enable river barges to avoid a lengthy and sometimes unreliable passage along the Elbe.