Geographical Facts - World Infrastructure and Economy

The people of Earth have always tried to outpass themselves in constructing the highest, longest or biggest items of infrastructure. Also, the infrastructure plays an important part in an economy, a well-developed infracture being a strong foundation for a performant economy. Check out this list with facts about infrastructure and economy:

- It will take you 6 days to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest railway ever build. The railway has a total length of 9,259 km (5,753 mi).

- The Panama Canal shortens the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ocean by approximately 13,000 km (8,077 mi).

- The Öresund Bridge connects Sweden and Denmark, and it is the longest road and rail bridge in Europe (7.8 km or 4.8 mi).

- The Lötschberg Base Railway Tunnel in Switzerland is the world's longest land tunnel (it has a length of 34.57 km or 21.48 mi).

- With a total length of 14,500 km (9,000 mi), Australia’s Highway One is the longest national highway in the world.

- The Karakoram Highway is the highest paved international road. This road connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range at an altitude of 4,693 m (15,397 ft).

- Shanghai has the longest metropolitan transportation network. Its rapid transit system has 273 station and over 420 km (260.9 mi) of tracks in use.

- Paraguay has only 38 km (23.6 mi) of operational railroad that is used by the weekly tourist steam trains.

- More than a third of the world's airports are in the United States of America.

- The Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic, serving 88 million passengers per year.

- There are 221 bridges that cross over the Mississippi river.

- 90% of Brazil’s electricity output comes from hydroelectric power.

- California is the world’s eighth economy in terms of GDP.

- Australia is the biggest coal exporter in the world.

- Luxembourg is the country with the highest steel production per capita in the world – approximately 4 tonnes of steel for each inhabitant.

- The belgian city of Antwerp is one of the most important diamond trade center in the world.

- 19% of the total electrical power production of Denmark is represented by the wind power.

- You can find four European countries in the global top ten Gross Domestic Product rankings: Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy.

- Although Germany and Japan occupy only 0,5% of the earth land area, their economies produce 14% of the total global GDP.

- Netherlands is the top chocolate producing country but its chocolate industry depends mostly on the cacao beans cultivated in the Ivory Coast, the biggest producer of this item.