Vasco da Gama Bridge

This bridge is in Portugal, near the city of Lisbon. It crosses the Tagus River.

It is a very, very long bridge!

The Vasco da Gama Bridge crosses the wide Tagus River at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It gives the towns of Montijo and Alcochete, across the river, a direct link to Lisbon.

The European Investment Bank, which helped pay for it, gives the deck as 17.2 kilometers long, counting its viaducts and access roads. The bridge is named in honor of the navigator Vasco da Gama.

The bridge crosses the Tagus estuary from Lisbon; the EIB credits it with giving the Montijo and Alcochete municipalities direct access to the capital. A 1999 article in Concrete Engineering International describes an 18-kilometer crossing, 11 kilometers over water and 7 over land, carrying a dual three-lane highway; the European Investment Bank gives the deck, with viaducts and access roads, as 17.2 kilometers.

The EIB says it was named in honor of the navigator who first charted the sea route to India, Vasco da Gama. The project received money from the European Union's Cohesion Fund and a loan from the EIB.

Look at the tall towers. Long cables come down from them like strings.

The cables hold up the road!

The main part of the bridge is cable-stayed: its road deck hangs from cables fixed to the main towers, which are 150 meters high.

There, the deck sits up to 47 meters above the water, high enough for medium-sized ships to sail underneath. The rest of the crossing runs on long viaducts, roads held up by rows of pillars.

The EIB describes a deck suspended by cables secured to the main towers, which are 150 meters high, with the deck up to 47 meters above the water so that medium-sized ships can pass underneath. In the 1999 article, this 830-meter cable-stayed Main Bridge crosses the Norte navigation channel.

Most of the crossing is viaduct: the longest part, the Central Viaduct, runs 6,531 meters on spans of mostly 80 meters, with two of 130 meters.

In this photo, it is night. The bridge's lights shine on the dark water!

Water birds live in the river below the bridge.

This photo was taken at night in July 2012. The lights along the bridge glow yellow and shine on the river, and the deck stretches away until it almost disappears.

The bridge crosses the Tagus Estuary Natural Reserve, where water birds feed and nest. The builders used methods that protected the wetlands, and the bridge's lights were designed to cause less light pollution. The EIB said in 2024 that more than 62,000 vehicles cross it every day.

The photograph (July 2012, by Paulo Valdivieso) was taken at night from the Lisbon bank: one main tower and its fans of cables rise on the left, and the lit deck runs off toward the far shore, its lights reflected in the river.

Because the bridge crosses the Tagus Estuary Natural Reserve, a feeding and nesting area for water birds, the EIB reports that an environmental program was put in place, with building methods that preserved the wetlands and lighting designed to reduce light pollution. In 2024 the EIB counted more than 62,000 vehicles crossing every day.