Totally Concerned with Length

Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 by Kerry Banks in Quizzes

I was just reading about how the Nile River may not be the world’s longest river, a geographical fact we all had hammered into our heads in grade school. The Nile has been measured at 6,693 kilometres (4,160 miles), making it slightly longer than the Amazon, which is 6,436 kilometres (4,000 miles) long. But researchers in Brazil are now reporting that the Amazon is actually longer. The claim follows an expedition to Peru that established a new starting point further south, which puts the Amazon at 6,800 kilometres (4,250 miles). The Amazon is now said to begin in an ice-covered mountain in southern Peru. Researchers travelled for 14 days, sometimes in freezing temperatures, to establish the location at an altitude of 5,000 metres.

While this watery issue remains in dispute, most of the world’s other longest record-holders appear to be more definite. Let’s take a closer look at some of the longest things, and lest you get the wrong idea, I am not talking about arcane stuff such as the longest toenail, hotdog, conga line or Hollywood marriage. No, consistent with the theme of this blog, this list concerns travel, tourism, transportation or geography.

World’s longest non-stop passenger airline flight: On December 10, 2005, a Boeing 777-200LR dubbed the Worldliner completed the longest non-stop passenger airline flight, covering 21,602 kilometres from Hong Kong to London in roughly 22 hours and 40 minutes. The Boeing also captured the record for the long stay aloft by a passenger airline plane. Onboard were eight pilots, including Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, Boeing’s first woman test pilot. Although the plane had 301 seats, there were only 27 passengers aboard. There were a couple Boeing executives; several Boeing 777 engineers; representatives from General Electric and a dozen journalists.

World’s longest corn maze: If you happen to be in Liberty, Missouri, and have an urge to get lost check, then check out the Liberty Corn Maze, which ranks as the world’s longest. Each year, using a GPS, they create a new maze in the corn with a particular theme. In 2005 the maze had a NASCAR theme; in 2006 it was dedicated to baseball’s Kansas City Royals; the 2008 design was a salute to the Kansas City Zoo. The Liberty Corn Maze boasts more than 30 kilometres of trails, but don’t worry, if you get lost one of the “corn cops” will help you out.

World’s longest sandy beach: Virtually unknown by western travellers, Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, the world’s longest natural sandy beach, runs for an unbroken 125 kilometres alongside the Bay of Bengal. Besides the endless vista of sand there are towering cliffs, surfing waves, rare conch shells, colourful pagodas and Buddhist temples. It derives its name from Captain Cox, a British naval officer. But more poetically the beach is also known as Panowa, meaning “yellow flower.”

World’s longest canyon: This gigantic gash in the ground is found in China. It’s called the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon and it out-canyons Arizona’s Grand Canyon by 50 kilometres, checking in at 496 kilometres in length. It’s also the world’s deepest canyon, reaching depths of 5,382 metres compared to 5,133 metres for the Grand Canyon.

World’s longest zip line: If you’re itching to tackle the world’s longest zip line just make your way to Sun City, South Africa. Stretching an exhilarating two kilometres, the Pronutro zip 2000 is not only the world’s longest zip line, it’s also the highest at 280 metres, as well as the fastest, with riders reaching stomach-turning speeds of over 140 kilometres per hour.

World’s longest street: Starting from Lake Ontario, splitting Toronto into east and west, and finally ending in Rainy River, Ontario, Yonge Street is the longest street in the world. Officially measured at 1,896 kilometres, the street began its history as a trail for the Huron Indians, then was used by European explorers. It was named Yonge Street in 1793, after Sir George Yonge.

World’s longest walk: On Christmas Day 1969, Arthur Blessitt left Los Angeles on a walk and took his 40-pound, 12-foot cross with him. He is still walking and carrying his cross and spreading his message about God everywhere he goes. To date, the eccentric evangelist has visited all 50 U.S. states, all seven continents and 315 nations, while covering more than 61,000 kilometres. He has walked through 52 countries at war and been arrested or jailed 24 times. He has travelled constantly with his second wife, Denise, since their marriage in 1990. To learn more about Blessitt’s 40-year journey, visit his website: www.blessitt.com/

World’s longest apartment building: The Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna, Austria, is the world’s longest Gemeindebauten, which in German means “municipality building,” a residential building constructed by a municipality, usually to provide low-cost housing. The Karl-Marx-Hof was built from 1927 to 1930 and measures over 1.1 kilometres in length and has enough room to house about 5,000 people.

World’s longest heat wave: Generally a heat wave is considered to be the number of days with the temperature reaching or exceeding 100 °F or 37.8 °C. This unwanted record goes to the town of Marble Bar in Western Australia. From October 31, 1923 to April 7, 1924, the temperature broke the 100 °F mark for a scorching 160 consecutive days.

World’s longest streak of rain: Next time you’re complaining about the weather take some heart from the following record. Kaneohe Ranch, in Oahu, Hawaii, reported 247 straight days of rain from August 27 1993 to April 30, 1994.

World’s longest railroad: Extending a formidable 9,446 kilometres from Moscow to the port city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific Coast, the Trans-Siberian Railway covers over one third of the circumference of the Earth. Czar Alexander III designed the railroad in 1891 to give Russia an accessible port on the Pacific. It was not completely finished until 1916. The cost of construction was 1.4 billion rubles (equivalent to what it cost Russia to wage World War I) and the lives of uncounted thousands of slave labourers. Oddly, though the trip spans seven times zones, the train itself and the official schedule stay on Moscow time. The week-long epic costs about $500 for a first-class ticket.

World’s longest windsurfing journey: You need to be crazy and feel at home on the water to set this record. Evidently Flavio Jardim and Diogo Guerreiro qualify. From May 17, 2004 to July 18, 2005, these two intrepid Brazilians wind-surfed an astounding 8,120 kilometres from Chui to Oiapoque on the Brazilian coast.

World’s longest road tunnel: If you’d like to take a drive through the longest road tunnel in the world get yourself and your car over to Norway where you will find the Laerdal Tunnel. Built between 1995 and 2000 at a cost of $125 million, the tunnel covers 24.5 kilometres and runs from Laerdal to Aurland. It was opened on November 27, 2000.

World’s longest staircase: Feeling full of vim? The Niesen funicular (basically a tram) in Switzerland rises up to an altitude of 2,336 metres. Next to the Niesen funicular is an outdoor service staircase, with a mind-boggling 11,674 steps. Though the staircase is normally only used by staff, it is opened to 200 people for one day a year for the Niesenlauf stair run. And quite an ordeal it is, with competitors high-stepping through cloud, rain or even snow, even though the race takes place in June. The record for the event is one hour two minutes for men and one hour nine minutes for women, which seems remarkably fast considering the number of steps is equivalent to climbing the CN Tower 4.5 times.

World’s longest lightning bolt: Most lightning bolts are a modest few kilometres in length. However, there have been much longer ones. The longest bolt ever recorded stretched an electrifying 190 kilometres near Dallas, Texas. It was an example of positive lightning, a rare form of lightning that originates from positively charged regions of the thundercloud. Also known colloquially as “bolts from the blue,” positive lightning is also believed to have been responsible for the 1963 in-flight explosion and subsequent crash of Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707.

World’s longest earthquake: A massive quake that hit Sumatra in Indonesia on December 26, 2004, measured 9.3 on the Richter Scale and lasted 10 minutes. Earthquakes usually last only a few seconds, which indicates the force of this one. The energy released by it equalled the power of a 100 gigaton bomb. This quake also created the longest fault ever recorded in the sea floor, a rupture extending for 1,288 kilometres. The earthquake is believed to be the second largest ever recorded. Nearly 300,000 people lost their lives in the disaster.

World’s longest national anthem: Do the Greeks actually sing this? “Ode to Freedom,” originally written as a poem by Dionysios Soloms in 1823 and composed by Nikolaos Mantzaros in 1828, was adopted as the Greek national anthem in 1864. The anthem is 158 stanzas long.

World’s longest sea-spanning bridge: Some 600 experts spent nine years working on the design of this masterpiece of modern architecture. China’s Hangzhou Bay Bridge is an S-shaped stayed-cable bridge with six lanes of traffic in both directions The 36-kilometre long bridge, which opened in May 2008, spans the mouth of Hangzhou Bay in the East China Sea, linking the commercial capital of Shanghai and the port city of Ningbo. A 30-storey observation tower and a hotel and conference centre are going to be built in the middle of the span.

World’s longest continuously inhabited city: Cities may come and go, but Damascus remains. Recent excavations have shown that the Syrian capital was inhabited as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BC, although it was not written about as an important city until about 4,000 BC.

World’s longest continuous taxi fare: Ada Beal was a wealthy spinster with a rich appetite for adventure. Charlie Heard was a working-class taxi driver, with a wife and four children. In the early years of the Depression, the two Australians settled on a most remarkable business deal. He was sitting in his taxi in Geelong, a town near Melbourne, when Ada approached him and asked if he would be interested in a long fare. The fare turned out to be much longer than he expected. Ada told Charlie that she wanted to go across the continent to Darwin and back. On June 20, 1930, Miss Beal, wearing her trade mark fur coat, along with two female friends, set out in Heard’s 1928 Hudson soft top. The three-month road trip took them from Victoria’s Great Ocean Road to Darwin, via Warrnambool, Adelaide, Port Augusta and Alice Springs, then home again down the east coast, a total of 11,500 kilometres. Miss Beal reportedly paid Heard £300 for his trouble, which equates to about $20,000 today. He used the money to buy a petrol station. On the 78th anniversary of the trip on June 20, 2008, five of Heard’s grandchildren re-created the journey in a restored 1929 Essex, a close match to the original car.

Photo Credits:

#1: vaughanwylie.com

#2: suobil.com

#3: lifeclever.com

#4: contractjournal.com

Tags: Corn Maizes, Rivers, Train Travel, Travel Trivia, Ziplines