The Eiffel Tower was the tallest structure on Earth for 41 years after its 1889 unveiling. Today it would not even crack the top 200. The Burj Khalifa, completed in 2010, doesn't just beat the Eiffel Tower — it dwarfs it. So yes, the Burj Khalifa is taller, but the gap is bigger than most people expect.
The Short Answer
Yes. The Burj Khalifa is 2.5 times taller than the Eiffel Tower. Burj Khalifa: 828 m (2,717 ft). Eiffel Tower with antenna: 330 m (1,083 ft). Difference: 498 m. You could stack the Eiffel Tower on top of itself and still not match the Burj Khalifa.
Side-by-Side Numbers
- Burj Khalifa height: 828 m (2,717 ft)
- Eiffel Tower height (with antenna): 330 m (1,083 ft)
- Eiffel Tower (original, 1889): 300 m (984 ft)
- Difference: 498 m
- Ratio: Burj Khalifa is ~2.51× as tall
- Burj Khalifa floors: 163 habitable + service levels
- Eiffel Tower floors: 3 observation platforms
The Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa opened in January 2010 and immediately became the world's tallest building, a title it still holds 16 years later despite challengers in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — the same firm behind New York's One World Trade Center and Chicago's Willis Tower. Its Y-shaped floor plan was inspired by the Hymenocallis flower native to the Arabian Gulf region, and the tapered "buttressed core" structure handles desert winds without using massive amounts of structural steel.
The building has 163 floors with offices, the Armani Hotel (floors 1-39), residential apartments (floors 44-108), more offices (109-154), and an observation deck called "At the Top" on floor 124, plus a higher "At the Top SKY" deck on floor 148. The total construction cost was around $1.5 billion. The tower was financed largely by Abu Dhabi after Dubai's 2008-2009 debt crisis — which is why it was renamed from "Burj Dubai" to "Burj Khalifa" in honor of UAE President Sheikh Khalifa.
The Eiffel Tower
Gustave Eiffel's tower was built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, the World's Fair celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. It was meant to be a temporary installation — the iron permit was for 20 years. The tower survived because it proved useful as a radio antenna. At 300 m, it held the world's tallest structure title from 1889 until the Chrysler Building took it in 1930. Today's 330 m height includes broadcasting antennas added in stages, most recently a 6 m extension in 2022.
The structure weighs 10,100 tonnes and is made almost entirely of wrought iron — 18,038 individual pieces held together by 2.5 million rivets. The tower has three accessible levels for visitors: the first floor at 57 m, the second at 115 m, and the top at 276 m. About 7 million people visit each year, making it the most-visited paid monument in the world. Despite being a fraction of the Burj Khalifa's height, the Eiffel Tower's cultural footprint is arguably larger — it is the universal symbol of Paris.
How Many Eiffel Towers Equal One Burj Khalifa?
Doing the math: 828 ÷ 330 = 2.51. So if you stacked Eiffel Towers, you'd need two whole ones plus another half just to reach the Burj Khalifa's tip. Using the original 1889 height of 300 m, the ratio is even more striking — about 2.76 Eiffel Towers per Burj Khalifa.
Put differently: when the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889, the tallest structure on Earth before it was Cologne Cathedral at 157 m. The Eiffel Tower nearly doubled that. The Burj Khalifa, 121 years later, did the same thing again to Taipei 101 (509 m), nearly doubling the tallest building of its predecessor era.
Structural Engineering
The two structures represent different eras of building science. The Eiffel Tower is an exposed iron lattice — gorgeous, transparent, but limited in what you can do with the interior space. The Burj Khalifa is a reinforced concrete core wrapped in glass and aluminum cladding. The Burj Khalifa's concrete was specially designed to be pumped vertically to record heights — over 600 m, a world record at the time. Concrete was pumped at night during construction because daytime desert heat would have caused setting problems.
The Burj Khalifa's elevator system was also record-breaking. Otis built elevators that travel 504 m in a single shaft at speeds up to 10 m/s. The Eiffel Tower, by contrast, has hydraulic elevators that are themselves a 19th-century engineering marvel, though slow by modern standards.
Cost and Capacity
- Burj Khalifa cost: ~$1.5 billion (2010 dollars)
- Eiffel Tower cost: ~7.8 million gold francs (1889) ≈ $40 million today
- Burj Khalifa capacity: ~35,000 people simultaneously
- Eiffel Tower capacity: ~25,000 daily visitors at peak times
Cultural Status
The Eiffel Tower is one of the most photographed objects on Earth and a globally recognized symbol of Paris, France, romance, the Belle Époque, and 19th-century engineering. It appears on countless flags, logos, postcards, films, and souvenirs. The Burj Khalifa is the symbol of modern Dubai and the petrostate building boom, recognizable from films like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol where Tom Cruise scales its exterior. It's become an icon of 21st-century engineering ambition and Gulf state wealth display.
Will Anything Taller Beat It?
The Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia is designed to be 1,000 m (3,281 ft) — the first "kilometer tower." Construction stopped in 2018 over financing and family disputes, but resumed in 2025. When completed (target: 2028), it will exceed the Burj Khalifa by 172 m. There are several other proposed kilometer-plus buildings, but the Jeddah Tower is the only one actually under construction. For now, the Burj Khalifa remains the unrivaled king.
Key Facts
- The Burj Khalifa is 2.51× the height of the Eiffel Tower with antenna.
- You can see the Burj Khalifa from up to 95 km away on clear days; the Eiffel Tower is visible from about 70 km.
- The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be torn down after 20 years.
- The Burj Khalifa's observation deck is at 555 m — higher than the entire Eiffel Tower.
- The Eiffel Tower shrinks by ~15 cm in winter and grows in summer due to thermal expansion of iron.
Fun Facts
- The Burj Khalifa has its own zip code.
- The Eiffel Tower has been "sold" multiple times by con artists, most famously by Victor Lustig in 1925.
- The Burj Khalifa's sunset on the upper floors is 2-3 minutes later than at ground level.
- Gustave Eiffel had an apartment on the top floor of the Eiffel Tower where he hosted Thomas Edison.
- The Burj Khalifa's windows take 36 men working full time to clean — and the cleaning cycle takes 3-4 months.
Visitor Experience
Both towers operate observation decks that have become some of the most visited paid attractions in the world. The Burj Khalifa's "At the Top" observation deck on the 124th floor (452 m) and "SKY" deck on the 148th floor (555 m) offer 360-degree views over Dubai and the Persian Gulf, with the SKY deck holding the record for highest observation deck in the world until very recently. About 1.87 million people visit annually. The Eiffel Tower's three observation levels — at 57 m, 115 m, and 276 m — are accessed by elevators or via the famous staircase (704 steps to the second level). About 7 million people visit the Eiffel Tower each year, making it the most-visited paid monument in the world.
Engineering Innovations
Both structures pushed the limits of their eras. The Eiffel Tower used 18,038 iron pieces held together by 2.5 million rivets in a lattice design that distributed wind loads with minimal mass. The Burj Khalifa used a "buttressed core" design — a hexagonal central core with three buttressing wings inspired by the Hymenocallis flower — that allowed the tower to taper as it rises while maintaining structural integrity. Concrete pumping during Burj Khalifa construction set a world record at over 600 m vertical pumping, requiring a special high-pressure concrete formulation that could survive Dubai's extreme summer heat during pumping. The tower can sway up to 1.5 m at the top in strong winds, with active vibration damping built into the design.
The Bottom Line
The Burj Khalifa is dramatically taller than the Eiffel Tower — by a factor of 2.5. But "taller" isn't the only measure of an icon. The Eiffel Tower set the template for what a national monument could be in the industrial age; the Burj Khalifa is what that ambition looks like 120 years later, scaled up with 21st-century concrete and ambition. The two are best understood not as competitors but as bookends of the modern tall-structure era.