History of the tallest buildings in the world

The tallest building in the world is Burj Khalifa. Before Burj Khalifa, the title of "world's tallest building" has been borne by various buildings, such as Rouen Cathedral and the Empire State Building.

The skyscraper was invented in Chicago in 1884. For the next hundred years, the world's tallest building was always in the United States with New York City accumulating 87 years, and Chicago accumulating 30 years. After just over a century (1885–1998) the distinction moved to the Eastern Hemisphere. Malaysia was the first country to break United States' record of building tallest buildings in the world by building Petronas Twin Towers in 1998, which held the record for 6 years before losing it to Taipei 101 in 2004. Before the current era of commercial skyscrapers, there was an era where the tallest buildings were Christian churches/cathedrals (c. 1250–1901), dominated by England and Germanic territories.

Before this time, it is not possible to conclusively state what was the tallest building in the world. For instance, the Lighthouse of Alexandria (completed about 280 BC) was very tall, but its true height is not known. For thousands of years, the Great Pyramid in Egypt was the tallest structure in the world, but the Great Pyramid is not considered a building since it was not inhabitable.

The earliest structures now known to be the tallest in the world were the Egyptian pyramids, with the Great Pyramid of Giza, at an original height of 146.5 metres (481 ft), being the tallest man–made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, until the construction of Lincoln Cathedral in 1300. From then until the completion of the Washington Monument (capped in 1884) the world's tallest buildings were churches or cathedrals. Later, the Eiffel Tower and, still later, some radio masts and television towers were the world's tallest structures.

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