The tallest buildings in the world today are called skyscrapers. As more people moved to cities after the American Civil War, cities began running out of room. Here in America we take owning a lot of rural land for granted but in a large city, there is not room for that. In rural areas of the US you can build a house and one family can live comfortably on five acres. In a city, those five acres can house 40,000 people. In 1885, the first skyscraper was built in Chicago, Illinois. This building was only ten stories tall. At 138 feet tall it did not last as the tallest building for long. As with many other things, people raced to see who could build a taller building, and that race is still going, 139 years later. You can find amazing skyscrapers in cities all around the world.

The Empire State building in Manhattan, New York, is famous for a lot of reasons. First, at 102 stories tall, it held the record for the tallest building in the world for 41 years. It is still in the top 100 tallest buildings in the world. It also held the record for the fastest skyscraper ever built. It only took 410 days. That is just over a year! Every year, there is a race held inside the Empire State Building. Runners have to go from the ground floor to the 86th floor using the stairs. There are 1,576 steps and the record for the fastest time is 9 minutes and 33 seconds. I think I will use the elevator, thank you very much. This building is so famous it has been in more than 250 movies. 

In China, you will find 10 of the tallest buildings in the world. They have shopping malls, business offices, hotels and apartments. The second tallest building in the world is the Shanghai Tower. It reaches 127 stories into the air and five stories below ground. The building was built in a spiral shape so the wind will not make it sway as much. This skyscraper cost almost 3 billion dollars to build.

The tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. If you want to live there you have to be very wealthy. There are more than 300 apartments in the Burj but they are not cheap. What if I told you it would cost $103,000 a month? There are 54 elevators in this impressive building. Have you ever thought about traveling 40 miles per hour in an elevator? If that is something you would like to do, the Burj is the place to do it. The New Year's Eve celebration in Dubai now centers around this building. Fireworks, spotlights, jets of water and LED lights are put together to make the biggest light show around the world.

The Burj Khalifa needs to enjoy being in first place as the tallest building because there are buildings already under construction that plan to pass it. Who will be next to hold the record?