Quick Facts: Current world’s tallest: Burj Khalifa, Dubai (828m / 2,717 ft), completed 2010. Soon to be surpassed by: Jeddah Tower, Saudi Arabia (1,000m / 3,281 ft), completion expected by 2025-2026. Other megatalls: Shanghai Tower (632m), Makkah Royal Clock Tower (601m), Ping An Finance Centre (599m). Criteria: Height is measured to architectural top, not antenna.
The race to build the world’s tallest structure has never really stopped. It’s slowed, shifted continents, changed economic logic, and occasionally produced buildings of genuine beauty. Right now, the Burj Khalifa holds the record it has held since 2010. That record is about to fall.
The Current Record Holder
At 828 meters, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai remains the world’s tallest completed building. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it took six years to build and required an entirely new approach to structural engineering, including a buttressed core system that allowed the building to distribute wind loads across its Y-shaped footprint. It is, by any measure, a remarkable piece of engineering.
The Contender: Jeddah Tower
The Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture, is designed to reach exactly one kilometer, making it the first building to cross that threshold. Construction has been ongoing since 2013, paused, resumed, and as of 2025 is moving toward completion. When it finishes, the title moves to Saudi Arabia for the first time.
The Rest of the Megatall List
The gap between the Burj Khalifa and the next tier of supertall buildings is significant. Shanghai Tower (632m), the Makkah Royal Clock Tower (601m), and Ping An Finance Centre (599m) round out the top five. Each represents a different approach to the engineering and cultural challenges of extreme height. None of them are small achievements.
Why We Keep Building Taller
The engineering argument for megatall buildings is genuinely interesting: above a certain height, the structural systems required become so specialized that they generate innovations applicable to buildings far shorter. But the honest answer is simpler. Cities use tall buildings to announce themselves. Height is legible from a distance in a way that nothing else quite is.
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Where are the US towers?
Excess. In the Egyptian deserts we see the consequences of Man’s quest of self promotion. Kudos to those who have the knowledge and skill to make such things possible, but in the end it is all a pyrrhic victory. Economically its success is dependent upon it’s self created rarity – rent, sufficient to offset the empty space of elevator shafts required to transport people to its furthest reaches.
An infantile contest of mine is bigger than yours, and dangerous as well. Imagine one of these towers on fire.
babel
WOW! Who would want to live so high. Must take a lot of time to get to the top.