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How big is the Eiffel Tower?

330 mètres!

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Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower in Paris, France, built by Gustave Eiffel for the world's fair of 1889. It is 330 meters (1,083 feet) tall, measured to the top of the antennas on its summit. It reached that height on March 15, 2022, when a new radio antenna was added.

Size

The tower itself was built exactly 300 meters (984 feet) tall, and before it took Eiffel's name it was known as the "300-meter tower". On its opening day, March 31, 1889, a large flagpole on top brought it to a little over 312 meters (1,024 feet). Radio and television antennas have added height since then. A digital television antenna took the tower to 324 meters (1,063 feet) in 2000, and a 6-meter (20-foot) digital radio antenna took it to 330 meters in 2022.

At ground level, the four legs stand at the corners of a square 125 meters (410 feet) on each side, and each leg is 25 meters (82 feet) wide. The tower has three floors, at heights of 57, 115 and 276 meters (187, 377 and 906 feet).

Size comparisons

  • Three American football fields stood end to end would reach almost exactly the tower's height. Each is 110 meters (120 yards) long, including the end zones.
  • The square formed by the four legs is 125 meters on each side, a little longer than a football field.
  • Stood on end, the Titanic, which was 269 meters (883 feet) long, would reach about four-fifths of the way up the tower.
  • The tower is about 1.7 times as tall as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which is 192 meters (630 feet) tall.
  • The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, 828 meters (2,717 feet) tall, is about two and a half times the height of the tower.

How the tower was built

The tower was built for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, a world's fair in Paris that marked the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Digging began on January 26, 1887, and the tower was finished on March 31, 1889, two years, two months and five days later.

It is made of 18,038 iron parts, joined by 2.5 million rivets. The metal frame weighs 7,300 metric tons (about 8,000 US tons), and the whole tower weighs 10,100 metric tons.

How radio saved the tower

The tower was meant to stand for only 20 years. It was saved by the scientific experiments that Eiffel encouraged, above all the first radio transmissions. In 1903 it served as a military radio post. Later it carried radio and television transmitters, and it still does.

As of 2026, the company TDF broadcasts more than 30 digital television channels and about 30 radio stations from the top of the tower, reaching 12 million people in the Paris region. The digital radio antenna added in 2022 is 6 meters tall and weighs 350 kilograms (770 pounds). A helicopter lifted it into place, the first time a helicopter had been used to install equipment on the tower.

Sources

L'échelle de l'Univers > Eiffel Tower
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