Øresund Bridge
road and railway bridge over Øresund
The Øresund Bridge or Öresund Bridge is a combined railway and motorway cable-stayed bridge across the Øresund strait between Denmark and Sweden. It is the second longest bridge in Europe and combines both roadway and railway in a single structure, consisting of international European route E20 and the Øresund Line respectively. It runs nearly 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. The Øresund Link is completed by the four-kilometre (2+1⁄2-mile) Øresund Tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager.
Construction began in 1995 and it opened to traffic on 1 July 2000. The bridge, as part of the Øresund Link, directly connects the road and rail networks of the Scandinavian Peninsula with Mainland Europe, via the Great Belt Fixed Link (constructed 1988–1998) connecting Zealand to Funen and thence to the Jutland Peninsula. Both projects helped to lessen the isolation of Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia from the rest of the continent. A data cable also makes the Øresund Link the backbone of Internet data transmission between central Europe and Sweden.
The bridge was designed by Jørgen Nissen and Klaus Falbe Hansen from Ove Arup & Partners, and Niels Gimsing and Georg Rotne. The justification for the additional expenditure and complexity related to digging a tunnel for part of the way, rather than raising that section of the bridge, was to avoid interfering with air traffic from the nearby Copenhagen Airport, to provide a clear channel for ships in good weather or bad, and to prevent ice floes from blocking the strait.
“Øresund Bridge” enters the record as road and railway bridge over Øresund. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Øresund, Bridge and road can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Øresund Bridge” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Øresund, Bridge and road provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q297871. VIAF identifies the subject as 242293774. Authority coordinates are 55.576, 12.822. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 2000, 1988 and 1998.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Øresund Bridge”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Øresund Bridge primary sources, Øresund Bridge archive and Øresund research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Øresund Bridge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.