The Race To Build The World’s Tallest Skyscraper

In 1909, New York’s Metropolitan Life Tower became the tallest building in the world at 700 feet. Just over a century later, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa reached 2,717 feet, nearly four times taller.

This timeline, via Visual Capitalist’s Gabriel Cohen, shows every building to hold the title of world’s tallest since 1909, using the most recent data available from the Council on Vertical Urbanism (CVU).

Per CVU methodology, buildings must include floors, excluding structures such as Toronto’s CN Tower and the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Heights are measured to the architectural top, including spires but excluding detachable antennae, flagpoles, or signs.

New York’s Skyscraper Boom

For most of the 20th century, the U.S. housed the world’s tallest building. New York in particular held the crown, with the Big Apple producing back-to-back skyscraper marvels from 1909 to 1972.

The Metropolitan Life Tower, constructed in New York’s Flatiron District, topped out at 700 feet in 1909. Within a few years, it would be surpassed by Tribeca’s Woolworth Building (792 feet), which itself lost the title by the late 1920s with the arrival of the Art Deco icon known as the Chrysler Building (1,046 feet).

The table below lists the world’s tallest buildings between 1909 and 2026.

The Chrysler Building, found in East Midtown, opened in 1930 as the world’s first supertall skyscraper. At the time, developers were racing to build the world’s tallest building, and the Chrysler Building famously beat rival 40 Wall Street by secretly assembling a 125-foot spire inside the tower before raising it into place after 40 Wall Street was completed.

The Chrysler Building’s victory was short-lived. In 1931, the Empire State Building (1,250 feet) opened and promptly became the world’s tallest building by a significant margin. However, Depression-era economic slowdowns caused abysmal tenancy rates in the new supertall skyscraper, which was popularly derided as the “Empty State Building” in the mid-1930s.

The Twin Towers and Chicago’s Resurgence

The Empire State Building maintained its position until the completion of the Twin Towers in New York’s Financial District in 1972. At that time, One World Trade Center, commonly known as the North Tower, took the title at over 1,368 feet, standing a few feet taller than its South Tower counterpart. The two towers would eventually be destroyed in the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Chicago, the birthplace of the modern skyscraper, reemerged as a dominant player in tall buildings with the 1974 opening of the Sears Tower (1,451 feet), named for the retailer headquartered there. The building held the title of world’s tallest for nearly a quarter-century, although it was renamed in the 2000s after British insurance broker Willis Group Holdings.

In the late 1990s, the Petronas Towers opened in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur at 1,483 feet, marking the first time in decades that the world’s tallest building was not located in the United States. Similar to the Chrysler Building nearly 70 years earlier, the Petronas Towers’ spires made the difference, much to Chicagoans’ dismay.

How Asia Took Over the Skyscraper Race

Since the Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest building has remained in Asia, albeit in different regions. TAIPEI 101, in the Taiwanese capital, held the title following its completion in 2004 at 1,667 feet. A few years later, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa opened at a staggering 2,717 feet tall.

The Burj Khalifa is over 60% taller than TAIPEI 101 and nearly four times taller than the Metropolitan Life Tower, which opened a century earlier. Its long reign as the world’s tallest building could come to an end in the coming years, however, as another Middle Eastern tower nears completion in nearby Saudi Arabia.

The Jeddah Tower, which will be the world’s first building to surpass one kilometer in height, is projected to open as early as 2028. Construction began in 2013 but has been plagued by delays and pauses, only passing the 100th floor as of April 2026. When completed, this megatall skyscraper is expected to stand at 3,300 feet, making it over 500 feet taller than the Burj Khalifa.

Where are the world’s tallest buildings concentrated today? Find out with The World’s Tallest Buildings in 2024 on Voronoi.