Imagine visiting a building that stands over twice as high as the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan. To get a view above this building you would need to stack three Eiffel Towers one on top of the other and climb 5,000 steps to the observation deck of the third tower. Even at this height you would barely be looking down on this 163 floor modern marvel. If you jumped off of the top of this building, it would take over 10 seconds before your body met the ground.

The Burj Khalifa is practically from another planet when discussing the tallest buildings in the world. No other building comes even close to matching it's astronomical height. The Burj Khalifa rises over 1,000 feet above its closest competitor and it truly stands in a league of its own as the only skyscraper on the planet that truly lives up to its name. The Burj Khalifa literally cuts the sky as the clouds pass by its 2,717 foot high spire.

Will and I made our first visit to the Burj Khalifa in 2012 on a 10-day trip that took us through parts of Russia and Dubai. The Burj Khalifa is definitely one of those sites that you find yourself shaking your head at because your brain is just not powerful enough to comprehend how in the world man was able to build this masterpiece with his two simple hands. The Burj Khalifa is far and away the most impressive skyscraper that our eyes have ever seen on our travels around the world. You absolutely need to make plans to ride on the fastest elevator in the world to the top and enjoy the open air views of Dubai!

 

• Not only is this the tallest building in the world, but it is taller than its runner-up by over 1,000 feet (304 feet) at a miraculous 2,717 feet (826 meters). That is three times taller than the Eiffel Tower, 15 times higher than Niagara Falls and almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building!
• Beyond being the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa holds many other records as well, including the most floors of any building in the world, the highest observation deck in the world, the highest occupied floor and being the tallest free-standing structure in the world.
• To construct a building of such immense stature as the Burj Khalifa, it required a lot of materials! This includes over 110,000 tons (99,790,321 kg) concrete, 55,000 tons (49,895,160 kg) of steel rebar, and approximately 22 million man hours to complete.
• The windows of the Burj Khalifa were made of over 26,000 individually cut panels of glass. Don't forget, that many windows requires a lot of men to clean them; the Burj Khalifa employs 36 cleaners in twelve 13-ton (11,793 kg) machines attached to the building. These cleaners were chosen through a competition that was won by an Australian company.
• Some crazy statistics to help you further grasp the immense size of this building are as follows: The Burk Khalifa has over 162 floors, 49 office floors, 1044 residences, and 57 elevators.
• With a building of this size, there had to be a lot of innovation in terms of design and architecture. The designers anticipated there being some unique difficulties for people within the building in the event of an emergency, and so they developed the worlds first ever elevator system for such a tall building that can perform controlled evacuations if necessary.