How big is Burj Khalifa? | Scale of the Universe

The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and the tallest building in the world as of 2026. It is 828 meters (2,717 feet) tall, measured from its main entrance to the top of its spire. It holds offices, apartments and a hotel, and was completed in 2010.

Size

The heights of tall buildings are measured by rules set by the Council on Vertical Urbanism (CVU), which ranks the world's tallest buildings. Its main measurement runs from the lowest main entrance to the architectural top. That top includes spires but not antennas or flagpoles. By this rule the Burj Khalifa is 828 meters tall, the same figure its architects, the firm SOM, give.

CVU records two other heights for the tower. Unlike the architectural height, the height to its very tip counts any antenna, flagpole or other equipment above the building, and reaches 829.8 meters. The highest floor that people use is 585.4 meters up, leaving more than 240 meters of building above the last occupied floor, where the central core narrows into a spire. CVU counts 163 floors above ground.

Size comparisons

The Burj Khalifa is about two and a half times as tall as the Eiffel Tower, which is 330 meters (1,083 feet) tall.
Angel Falls in Venezuela, the tallest waterfall, drops 979 meters in all, 151 meters more than the tower's height. Its longest single drop, 807 meters, falls 21 meters short of the tower.
About 490 people 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall, each standing on the head of the one below, would reach the top.
About seven and a half American football fields, end zones included, stood on end would match its height.
Laid on its side, the tower would reach about four-fifths of the way along Vatican City, which is 1,045 meters long at its longest.

How the tower stands up

Seen from above, the tower is shaped like the letter Y. SOM says the design draws on the shape of a desert flower from the region and on patterns found in Islamic architecture. Each of the three wings has its own concrete core and columns, and the wings brace one another through a six-sided core at the center. This makes the tower very stiff against twisting.

The shape also helps the tower stand up to wind. As the Burj Khalifa rises, its wings step back one after another in a spiral, so the tower narrows toward the top.

Because its width changes at each step, the wind meets a different shape at every level. Swirls of air called vortices never get the chance to join up and grow. SOM describes this as confusing the wind.

Building and using the tower

The tower was developed by Emaar Properties and designed and engineered by SOM. Construction began in 2004 and ended in 2010. It has also been known as the Burj Dubai. The lower part of its structure is reinforced concrete, and the upper part is steel.

Inside are offices, about 900 apartments and a hotel with 304 rooms. The building has 58 elevators, and the fastest travel at 10 meters (33 feet) per second. An observation deck sits 555.7 meters (1,823 feet) above the ground.