Kansai International Airport Japan.
Built on artificial island offshore
As the world's population increases at a more-than-healthy rate andthe cost of travel decreases, the number of people looking to travel byair is understandably on the rise. With this growing demand comes theneed for more airports as existing ones struggle to cope with themillions of passengers passing through on a daily basis.
So what happens when there's no suitable land to build a new majorairport or locals protest the new construction without hesitation dueto noise pollution or other environmental implications?
If you travel to Japan in the near future you may witness a solutionto these problems, in the form of island airports. At present there arefour such constructions in Japan (there are also examples in Hong Kongand Macau), each built on its own artificial island offshore and eachbacked by the community it serves. The first of these incredibleengineering wonders to be built, and the first of its kind in theworld, was Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay. Just to build the4-kilometre long island called for 21 million cubic metres of landfillplus the assistance of 80 ships, then there was the small matter ofconnecting the airport to the mainland by way of a 3-kilometre bridge.In total the project has so far cost around $20 billion but has alreadysaved some expense by surviving both an earthquake and a typhoon in thelast 15 years, in addition to being open 24 hours a day due to itslocation.
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