Burj Khalifa

Are you afraid of heights? If so, you should probably never visit Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which is a 2,722 foot high skyscraper. The tower, located in the United Arab Emirates, is the world’s tallest man-made structure, surpassing all previous record holders during its construction. The project broke ground in 2004 and was officially completed and ready for opening in January of 2010.

The shear magnitude of Burj Khalifa is immediately obvious when glancing at Dubai’s skyline, though its size can also be measured in other ways. The building’s water system is supplied by 62 miles of pipes, the air conditioning system’s cooling in a day is, at times, equivalent to 29,000,000 lb of melting ice, and it takes a specialized maintenance crew of 36 workers between three to four months to clean the building’s exterior facade.

Building the world record holding “tallest building in the world” does come at a certain price. The mixed-use skyscraper, whose construction and opening took place during the global financial crisis, has an estimated construction cost of $1.5 billion.