Facts and Figures About the Eiffel Tower
Height: With flagpole, 1,030 feet when completed in 1889. Now, with TV antenna, 1,069 feet. Was tallest structure in the world until 1930 with construction of New York’s Chrysler Building.
Construction: Started in January 1887. Assembled from 18,038 iron pieces and 2.5 million rivets in two years, two months, five days. Weighs 10,100 tons.
Cost: $1.5 million, much of it recouped in ticket sales during the Paris World Fair of 1889, when the tower opened.
Builder: Gustave Eiffel, engineer, born in Dijon, eastern France, in 1832. Built bridges, railway stations; designed the iron skeleton of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Died in 1923, age 91.
Owner: City of Paris.
Visitors: 200 million since 1889; more than 6 million this year.
Quote: “It is much more famous than I am.” -- Gustave Eiffel.
Sources: Official Eiffel Tower Web site; “The Tallest Tower” by Joseph Harriss (Houghton Mifflin, 1975)
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