Uzunköprü Bridge

The Uzunköprü Bridge or Long Bridge meaning is a 15th-century Ottoman bridge, which gave its name to the town of Uzunköprü.

The bridge was built between 1426 and 1443 by head architect Muslihiddin on the orders of Ottoman Sultan Murad II. The ancient stone-built bridge with 174 arches, is 1,392 m long and up to 6.80 m wide. Some of the arches are pointed and some are round. When it was first completed, the structure was the longest bridge in the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey, a title which it held for 530 years until 1973, when it was surpassed by the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. However, Uzunköprü is still the longest stone bridge in Turkey.The bridge was made to cross the Ergene River, which was a natural barrier for advances into the Balkans for the Ottoman Empire; its old name was Ergene Bridge. It is so long in order to cross a low-lying marshy area. The bridge was restored in 1963.The Edirne–Izmir highway D.550 / E87 still passes over the Uzunköprü Bridge.