What is a megatall?
A megatall is a building 600 metres (1,969 ft) or taller. The term comes from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which measures height to the architectural top, counting spires but not antennas. Only 4 megatalls are finished today, and 2 more are being built.
About 40 floors and up, the usual line for a "tall" building.
984 ft. Megatalls tracks 37 of them.
1,969 ft. Twice the height of a supertall.
Every megatall, to scale
Why so few?
Above 600 m, every problem of a tall building grows. Wind pushes harder on the upper floors, so the shape is tuned in wind tunnels to stop the tower swaying. Elevators need sky lobbies and double-deck cars to move people in reasonable time. Foundations go deep: the Burj Khalifa stands on a concrete raft over 192 piles. The extra steel, concrete and time make each floor cost more than the one below it, so only a few developers, often backed by governments, take one on.
See them all
Browse every megatall with pictures, heights, developers and architects, or follow the supertalls under construction.