The 828-metre (2,717ft) tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai has been the tallest building since 2009. The Burj Khalifa has been classified as megatall.A diagram showing the tallest buildings as of 2024
This is a list of the tallest buildings. Tall buildings, such as skyscrapers, are intended here as enclosed structures with continuously occupiable floors and a height of at least 350 metres (1,150ft). Such definition excludes non-building structures, such as towers.
Historically, the world's tallest man-made structure was the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which held the position for over 3,800 years[3] until the construction of Lincoln Cathedral in 1311. The Strasbourg Cathedral in France, completed in 1439, was the world's tallest building until 1874.
The first building considered to be a skyscraper was the 138ft (42.1m)Home Insurance Building, built in Chicago in 1885. The United States would remain the location of the world's tallest building throughout the 20th century until 1998, when the Petronas Towers were completed. Since then, two other buildings have gained the title: Taipei 101 in 2004 and Burj Khalifa in 2009.[4] Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Middle East, China, and Southeast Asia have experienced booms in skyscraper construction.[5]
Ranking criteria and alternatives
The international non-profit organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) was formed in 1969 and announces the title of "The World's Tallest Building" and sets the standards by which buildings are measured. It maintains a list of the 100 tallest completed buildings in the world.[6] The organization currently ranks Burj Khalifa in Dubai as the tallest at 828m (2,717ft).[6] However, the CTBUH only recognizes buildings that are complete, and some buildings included within the lists in this article are not considered finished by the CTBUH.
In 1996, as a response to the dispute as to whether the Petronas Towers or the Sears Tower was taller,[7] the council listed and ranked buildings in four categories:[8]
height to structural or architectural top;
height to highest occupied floor;
height to top of roof (removed as category in November 2009);[9] and
height to top of any part of the building.
All categories measure the building from the level of the lowest significant open-air pedestrian entrance.[10]
Spires are considered integral parts of the architectural design of buildings, changes to which would substantially change the appearance and design of the building, whereas antennas may be added or removed without such consequences. The Petronas Towers, with their spires, are thus ranked higher than the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) with its antennas, despite the Petronas Towers' lower roofs and lower highest point.[8]
Until 1996, the world's tallest building was defined by the height to the top of the tallest architectural element, including spires but not antennae.[8] In 1930, this definitional argument led to a rivalry between the Bank of Manhattan Building and the Chrysler Building. The Bank of Manhattan Building (i.e. 40 Wall Street) employed only a short spire, was 282.5m (927ft) tall, and had a much higher top occupied floor (the second category in the 1996 criteria for tallest building). In contrast, the Chrysler Building employed a very large 38.1m (125ft) spire secretly assembled inside the building to claim the title of world's tallest building with a total height of 318.9m (1,046ft), although it had a lower top occupied floor and a shorter height when both buildings' spires were excluded.
Upset by Chrysler's victory, Shreve & Lamb, the consulting architects of the Bank of Manhattan Building, wrote a newspaper article claiming that their building was actually the tallest, since it contained the world's highest usable floor, at 255m (837ft). They pointed out that the observation deck in the Bank of Manhattan Building was nearly 30m (98ft) above the top floor in the Chrysler Building, whose surpassing spire was strictly ornamental and inaccessible.[11]
The Burj Khalifa currently tops the list regardless of which criterion is applied, though at a much lower margin when measured to highest occupied floor.[12][13]
Tallest buildings in the world
As of 2025[update], this list includes all 97 buildings (completed and architecturally topped out) that reach a height of 350m (1,150ft) or more, as assessed by their highest architectural feature. The building is considered as architecturally topped out when it is under construction, structurally topped out, fully clad, and the highest finished architectural elements are in place.[10]
Of these buildings, almost half are in China. Six of the last seven buildings to have held the record as 'tallest building' are still found in the list, with the exception being the North Tower of the original World Trade Center at 417m (1,368ft) after its destruction in the September 11 attacks of 2001. Had the Twin Towers never been destroyed and One World Trade Center never built, the WTC towers would rank 39 and 40 on the list today.
Clear
Denotes building that is or was once the tallest in the world
Tallest buildings by pinnacle height, including all masts, poles, antennae, etc. in 2014
This measurement disregards distinctions between architectural and non-architectural extensions, and simply measures to the highest point, irrespective of material or function of the highest element.[10]
This measurement is useful for air traffic obstacle determinations, and is also a wholly objective measure. However, this measurement includes extensions that are easily added, removed, and modified from a building and are independent of the overall structure.
This measurement only recently came into use, when the Petronas Towers passed the Sears Tower (now named Willis Tower) in height. The former was considered taller because its spires were considered architectural, while the latter's antennae were not. This led to the split of definitions, with the Sears Tower claiming the lead in this and the height-to-roof (now highest occupied floor) categories, and with the Petronas claiming the lead in the architectural height category.
If the original World Trade Center towers were still standing, the North (1,728 feet (526.7m), including the antenna) and South Towers(1,377 feet (419.7m)) would fall between numbers 11 and 37 on the current list (as it can be assumed the rebuilt One World Trade Center would have never been built).
†
Denotes building with pinnacle height higher than architectural
This list of tallest buildings by height to roof ranks completed skyscrapers by height to roof which reach a height of 300 metres (984ft) or more. Only buildings with continuously occupiable floors are included, thus non-building structures, including towers, are not included. Some assessments of the tallest building use 'height to roof' to determine tallest building, as 'architectural feature' is regarded as a subjective and an imprecise comparative measure. However, in November 2009, the CTBUH stopped using the roof height as the metric for tall buildings because modern tall buildings rarely have a part of the building that can categorically be deemed the roof.[114]
This is a list of buildings taller than 350m that are currently under construction.[147] On-hold buildings whose construction was interrupted after it had reached a significantly advanced state are listed in a separate table.
The following list shows the tallest completed buildings located on each continent listed by greatest to least height (click on name of continent for continent-specific list):
The following list shows the countries whose buildings are featured on the main list of world's tallest buildings (first list featured above), in order from most amount of buildings on the list to least amount of buildings on the list.
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