More than three million people cross this grand cantilever bridge every day, making it one of the busiest in the world. Spanning the Hooghly River and linking Kolkata with Howrah, it was opened in 1943 and had to be covered in netting during World War II to protect it from Japanese bombs. The bridge is at its most photogenic at dawn or dusk, when the light catches the steel structure and the river below teems with ferries and flower sellers. Walk across it rather than driving -- the pedestrian experience is pure Kolkata.
Howrah Bridge
Iconic cantilever bridge over the Hooghly, carrying three million people daily.
A story
The bridge was assembled without a single nut or bolt — the entire 705-metre structure is held together by rivets alone, over 26,000 tonnes of steel joined by 2 million riveted connections. Engineers were still learning how to build bridges of this scale when work began in 1939, and the no-nut specification was partly a precaution against vibration loosening fixings under the constant load of traffic.