![]() ![]() The latter-an example of a meander natural bridge-is a gargantuan arch with a mighty girth. ![]() Landscape Arch and Fairy Bridge, however, are very different arches. At around 400 feet (across the span of its opening), the Fairy Bridge has, since 2010, been considered the longest natural arch in the world. The longest of these was Fairy Bridge (Xian Ren Qiao), a natural bridge carved through limestone karst by the Buliu River in the Guangxi Province. Its potential as a world-record setter, however, was scuppered by accurate measurements of a handful of arches in China. Landscape Arch, therefore, was the largest natural stone arch in the United States. But when they measured Kolob in 2006, they found it had a span of 287.4 feet, just a little shorter than Landscape Arch. When they published their findings, the researchers believed that Kolob Arch in Zion National Park, Utah, was slightly longer, and therefore potentially the longest in the world. They found that it had a span of 290.1 feet (plus or minus 0.8 feet), a height of 77.5 feet, a width of 18 feet, a thickness of 6 feet, and an opening breadth of 295 feet. In 2004, a team used laser technology to measure Landscape Arch. Landscape Arch is located inside Arches National Park, a 76,679-acre park named for the 2,000 or so natural sandstone arches that dot its high-desert landscape. But then comes Landscape Arch in Arches National Park, Utah, recognized by NABS as the fifth-longest natural arch in the world, and the longest outside China. ![]() And in these rankings China is most definitely king, with all four of the world’s longest natural arches located within its territory. NABS, however, has ranked the world’s longest natural rock arches by span, defined as the horizontal extent of unsupported rock in the arch. Not only is the available data not always consistent, there’s also the problem of how to define “largest” or “longest” when it comes to arches. Ranking the world’s natural arches by size isn’t a precise science, as the Natural Arch and Bridge Society (NABS) is quick to point out in its global rankings. ![]()
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