Careful here! In one of Larry Niven's stories the elevator breaks. At least 22,000 miles of it (all of it below geosynchronous orbit) - and maybe more - would fall and wrap itself around the equator - almost exactly once. (I'm pretty sure it's a coincidence that the geosynchrous orbit radius is close to earth's diameter).
I wouldn't want to be living near the equator if it broke.
Kim Stanley Robinson must have stole that idea from him, in Red Mars the Martian elevator falls due to a terrorist attack. It was like a meteor impact, except it encircled Mars' equator.