Which one is the ‘tallest building’, ‘tallest tower’ or ‘tallest structure’ in the world?Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m. Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010.
The 828 metre Burj Khalifa skyscraper towers above downtown Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The no doubt soon-to-be iconic image taken earlier this year by GeoEye 1, the highest resolution satellite in operation, opens the 2011 calendar of parent company GeoEye.
With over 160 stories, the skyscraper is the tallest structure ever built, taking the title from Taipei 101 in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan.
It took 6 years, 39,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel, 330,000 cubic metres of concrete and 22 million man-hours to complete. The reinforced piles of the foundations alone contain over 110,000 tonnes of concrete, buried up to 50 metres deep.
GeoEye 1 is at an altitude of 684 kilometers over the surface of the Earth, and it’s capable of capturing details of just 16 inches long in black and white, and 64 inches in color. That’s probably myopic compared to the latest spy satellites.
