the Golden Gate Bridge the Golden Gate a bridge which crosses an area of water in San Francisco Bay in California, to connect the city of San Francisco with Marin County. Suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, San Francisco. From its completion in 1937 until the completion of New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, it had the longest main span in the world, 4,200 ft (1,280 m). It remains incomparable in its magnificence. Its construction, supervised by Joseph B. Strauss (1870-1938), involved many difficulties: rapidly running tides, frequent storms and fogs, and the problem of blasting rock under deep water to plant earthquake-resistant foundations