While the Burj Dubai will likely remain the tallest building in the world for a long time, the rankings of the next few buildings on the "world's tallest" list got shuffled today when the organization that ranks them changed the definition a bit:
The old standard was that a skyscraper's height was determined by calculating the distance from the sidewalk outside the main entrance to the building's spire or structural top.
The new standard is that height is measured from "the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance" to the top.
This means that Trump Tower, Chicago, moved up to 6th place, and some of the other "official" heights got jiggled a bit. The new rankings as of January (when Burj Dubai opens) are:
- Burj Dubai, U.A.E., 818 m
- Taipei 101, Taiwan, 508 m
- Shanghai World Financial Center, China, 492 m
- Petronas Towers 1, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, 452 m
- Petronas Towers 2, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, 452 m
Sears Willis Tower, Chicago, 442 m- Trump Tower, Chicago, 423 m
- Jin Mao Building, Shanghai, China, 421 m
- Two International Financial Center, Hong Kong, 415 m
- CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou, China, 390 m
Notice that all but two of the entrants in the list are in Asia, the exceptions being within five blocks of each other right here in Chicago. Still, it's sad to see the Hancock Center, Empire State Building, and a few others I could name, missing from the top-10 list.