The world's longest bench runs for almost 3 km between the Fausse-Monnaie bridge and the Sofitel Palm Beach hotel, along Marseille's Corniche Kennedy. The Corniche was laid out in the second half of the 19th century. Between 1957 and 1969, extensive work doubled the lanes and created this balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, with its molded concrete bench and pedestrian promenade offering an unparalleled panorama of the sea and islands... The result is the world's longest urban bench.
The Corniche Kennedy bench helped Marseille enter the record books in 1965.
Admittedly, it is sometimes interrupted by passages cut into its concrete, but it is indeed the longest urban bench in the world.
And it faces one of the most beautiful panoramas... in the world, of course!
Since it was registered in the Guinness Book of Records in 1965, the bench's position has been revised, but the Guinness Book of Records still says that the longest bench is in Switzerland, because the one in Marseille is cut by staircases.
The Swiss bench, made of wood, is 1,013.32 m long, but without interruptions, traverses the hills and mountains of the Appenzellerland region in Kronberg.
So, Marseilles exaggeration or Swiss rigor, the question is asked: which is the longest urban band in the world?
