World Records
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Wealthiest University |
- Harvard Univerisity (US) In 2000 the endowment was A$19 billion. Gradutes include 7 US presidents. |
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World Highest Capital City |
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La Paz, Bolivia ( 12,000 ft ) |
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World Biggest City |
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Mexico |
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World Tallest Office Building |
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Twin Tower at Malaysia |
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Earth
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World Largest Island |
- Greensland |
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World Largest Ocean |
- Pacific Ocean ( covering more than 1/3 of the earth's
surface at 166,241,700 km2 or 64,186,000 miles2 with
an average depth of 3,940m or 12,925 ft ) |
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World Greatest Depth |
- Pacific Ocean, 11,033 m ( 39,198 feets ) |
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Highest Active Valcano |
- The Ojos del Salado on the border between Vhile & Argentina at 6887 m (22,595 ft) high. |
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World Largest Sand Island |
- Fraser Island, Australia, featuring 90 miles beach,
many lakes and a huge plethora of flora and fauna. |
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World Largest Desert |
- The Sahara Desert in North Africa at 9,000,000 sq km (3,500,000 sq miles). |
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World Highest Mountain |
- Mt. Everest ( Chomolungma ) at Nepal - Tibet, 8863 m (29,078 feets) |
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World 2nd Highest Mountain |
- K2 (Chogori) at Kashmir - China, 8607m ( 29,238 feets) |
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World 3rd Highest Mountain |
- Kangchenjunga at Nepal - Skkim, 8586m ( 28,215 feets ) |
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Highest Mountain at South America |
- Aconcagua at Argentina-Chile, 6959m ( 22,831 feets ) |
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Highest Mountain at North America |
- McKinley (Denali) at USA, 6194m (20,320 feets) |
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Highest Mountain at Africa |
- Kilimanjaro at Tanzania, 5895m (19,341 feets) |
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Highest Mountain at Europe |
- Elbrus at Russia, 5642m (18,510 feets) |
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Highest Mountain at Antarctica |
- Vinson Massif, (5140m or 16,864 feets ) |
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Highest Mountain at Oceania |
- Wilhelm at Papua New Guinea, 4509m ( 14, 793 feets ) |
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World Deepest Trench |
- Marianas Deep in the South Pacific Ocean. |
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World Longest River |
- Amazon at Peru - Brazil, 6750 m ( 4195 feets ) |
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Longest River at Africa |
- Nile at Uganda - Ethiopia - Sudan - Egypt - Zaire - Congo, 6670 m (4145 feets ) |
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Longest River at Asia |
- Chang Jiang at China, 6380 m ( 3965 feets ) |
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Longest River at Oceania |
- Murray-Darling at Australia, 3824 m ( 2376 feets ) |
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Longest River at Europe |
- Volga at Russia, 3530 m ( 2193 feets ) |
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Longest River at Antarctica |
- Onyx, 30m ( 19 feets ) |
Earth Matters
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Largest Diamond |
- on January
26, 1905, the 'Cullinan', a 3,106-carat diamond was found at the Premier
Diamond Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa. It was given to the reigning
British monarch, Edward VII and cut into 106 polished diamonds, produced the
largest cut fine quality diamond, the "Star Of Africa",
which weight 530.2 carats and tops the Royal Sceptre, part of the British
Crown Jewels. |
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Deepest Ice Drilling |
- in July
1993, the deepest-ever ice borehole was reported to have reached the bottom
of the Greenland ice sheet, a depth of 3,053.51 m (10,018 ft). This
milestone was achieved after five years' drilling by US researchers. |
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Deepest Ocean Drilling |
- in
1993, the Ocean Drilling Program's vessel JOIDES Resolution carried out the
deepest recorded drilling below the sea bed, descending to 2,111 m (6,926 ft
in the eastern equatorial pacific). The greatest amount of core recovered
during a single leg of the Ocean Drilling Program's work was 6,731 m (22,083
ft) in 1995. |
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Deepest Underground Nuclear
Explosion |
- on June 18, 1985, a 2.5 kiloton nuclear device was detonated
at the bottom of a shaft 2,850 m (9,350 ft) deep at a site 60km (37 miles)
south of Nefte-yugamsk, Siberia in the former USSR. The detonation was an
attempt to simulate oil production. |
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Deepest Mine |
- on July 13,
1977, miners reached a depth of 3,581 m (11, 749 ft) at the Western deep
Levels Gold Mine in Carletonville, Transvaal, South Africa. The mine is
unpleasantly warm at its lowest levels because of geothermal heating and
miners are kept cool with water hoses. The mine has a hoisting shaft
2,072 m (6,800 ft) deep with a lift that winds at an ear-popping
maximum speed of 1,095 m (3,595 ft) per minute. |
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Largest Oil
Field |
- The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, which was developed by
Aramco (Saudi Arabia), is 240 km (150 miles) long and 35km (22 miles) wide.
As oh May 2000, then oil field estimated to contain between 70-85 billion
barrels of proven reserves. |
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Largest Oil Gusher |
- The largest known
'wildcat' oil gusher blew near Qum, Iran on August 26, 1956. The
uncontrolled oil gushed to a height of 52 m (170 ft), at a rate of 120,000
barrels per day. The gusher was closed after 90 days' work by B Mostofi and
Myron Kinley (USA). |
Weired Weather
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Driest Place on earth |
- Between 1964
and 2001 the average annual rainfall for the meteorological station in
Quillagua (above, situated AT LAT 21o38'S, long 69o33'W), in the Atacama
Desert, Chile, was just 0.5 mm (0.02 in). this discover was made during the
making of the documentary series Going To Extremes, by Keo Films in 2001.
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Wettest
Place (average): |
Tututendo,
Colombia, mean annual rainfall 11 770 mm.
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Heaviest Hailstones |
- The heaviest
hailstones ever recorded weighed up to 1kg (2 lb 2.4 oz) each. They are
reported to have killed 92 people when they fell in the Gopalganj district
of Bangladesh of April 14, 1986.
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Heaviest
Snowfall (continuous): |
Bessans,
Savoie, France, 1 730 mm in 19 hours, April 5-6, 1969
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Heaviest
Snowfall (season/year): |
Paradise
Ranger Station, Mount Rainier, Washington, USA, 31 102 mm, February 19,
1971, to February 18, 1972.
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Hottest Place on Earth |
- The hottest
place on Earth is the air around a lightning strike. For a fraction of a
second, the air is heated to an incredible 30,000oC (54,000oF). This is
roughly equivalent to five times hotter than the visible surface of the sun.
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Other |
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Longest Quarantined Island |
- In 1942, Gruinard island, Scotland, UK, was quarantined after a test
release of anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) that killed a flock of sheep. The
test was carried out to gather chemical warfare data. The quarantine was
lifted 48 years later, on April 24, 1990. Worldwide, 2000 cases of human
infection from anthrax are reported annually. |
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Longest Residential Building |
The Trump World Tower in New York City, USA,
is the World's tallest purely residential building, standing 262.5m(861
ft) high. The tower has 72 storeys, although the luxuriously lofty
ceilings make it taller than most other buildings with similar number of
floor. |
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Tallest Observation Wheel |
The 'British Airways London Eye', designed by
architects David Marks and Julia Barfield ( both UK) has a diameter and
height of 135m (443 ft) and made its first 'flight' on 1 February 2000.
It is the fourth-tallest structure in London, UK and can carry up to 800
passengers. |
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Tallest Cinema |
The World's tallest cinema complex is the UGC
Cinema, Glasgow, Strathclyde, (203 ft 4.9 in) It holds 18 screens, has a
seating capacity of 4,277 and is 12 storeys high. The cinema opened on
21 September 2001. |
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Tallest Opera House |
The Civic Opera House at 20 North Wacker Drive
in Chicago, lllinos, USA, is an imposing 45-storey skyscraper made from
limestone and is able to accommodate 3,563 people. The building opened
in 1929. |
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Tallest Office Building |
In March 1996, the Petronas Towers in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, overtook the Sears Tower's record as the world's
tallest office building. Stainless-steel pinnacles 73.5m (241 ft) long
placed on top of the 88-storey towers brought their height to 451.9 m
(1,482 ft 8 in). The Sears Tower has 110 storeys and is 443m (1,453 ft 6
in) tall. |
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Tallest Totem Pole |
A totem pole 54.94m (180ft 3 in) tall, called
'Spirit of Lekwammen' ('land of the winds'), was raised on 4 August 1994
at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, prior to the Commonwealth Games
held there that year. |
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Tallest Cathedral Spire |
The World's tallest cathedral spire is that of
the Protestant cathedral of Ulm in Germany. Work on the building began
in 1377, but the tower in the centre of the west facade, which is 160.9m
(528 ft) high, was not completed until 1890. |
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Tallest Minaret |
The tallest minaret in the world is that of
the Great Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca, Morocco, which is 200m ( 656 ft)
high. The cost of the mosque's construction was 5 billion dirhams (€360
million or $513.5 million). Among minarets of earlier centuries the
tallest is the Qutb Minar, south of New Delhi, India, built in 1194 to a
height of 72.54m (238 ft) |
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Tallest Chimney |
The coal power-plant No 2 stack at Ekibastuz,
Kazakhstan, completed in 1987, is 420m (1,378 ft ) tall. Its diameter
tapers from 44m (144 ft) at the base to 14.2m (46 ft 7 in) at the top,
and it weighs 60,000 tonnes (132,277,200 lb). The stack is on a par with
the world's fourth-tallest office building, Shanghai's Jin Mao Tower,
which is 421m (1,381 ft) tall. |
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Tallest Monument |
The world's tallest monument is the
stainless-steel Gateway to the West arch in St Louis , Missouri, USA,
which was completed on 28 October 1965. The monument was erected to mark
the westward expansion in the USA following the Louisiana Purchase of
1803, in which the United States bought the state of Louisiana from
France. The Gateway is a sweeping arch spanning 192m ( 630 ft) and
rising to the same height. Designed in 1947 by the Finnish-American
architect Eero Saarinen, it cost $29 million (€7 million) at the time. |
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Tallest Flagpole |
The tallest flagpole in the world is at
Panmunjon, North Korea. It is 160m (525 ft) high and flies a flag 30m
(98.5 ft) long. The flagpole is the result of a propaganda war between
the two countries, and was reportedly built in a nearby South Korean
village. |
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Tallest Statue |
A bronze status of Buddha measuring 120m (394
ft) high, was completed in Tokyo, Japan, in January 1993. A joint
Japanese-Taiwanese project, which took seven years to complete, it is
35m ( 115 ft) wide and weighs 1,000 tonnes (22,204,600 lb). |
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Tallest Lighthouse |
The steel 'Marine Tower' lighthouse at
Yamashita Park in Yokohama, Japan, stands 106m (348 ft) high. It has a
power of 600,000 candelas ( a candela is a basic unit of luminous
intensity), a visibility range of 32 km (20 miles) and an observatory
100m (328 ft) above the ground. It was built to mark the 100th
anniversary of the first recorded trade between Yokohama and the West,
in 1854. |
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Tallest Fountain |
At its full pressure of 26.3kg/cm2 (375
lb/in2) and a rate of 26,500 litres/min (5,850 gal/min), the fountain at
Fountain Hills Arizona, USA, produces a column of water that reaches a
height of 171.2m (562 ft). |
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Tallest Free-Standing Structure |
The tallest free-standing structure on Earth
is the Petronius oil and gas drilling platform, which stands 570m (1,870
ft) above the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico. Operated by Texaco, it
began production on 21 July 2000. The highest point on the platform, the
vent boom, is over 610m (2000 ft) above the ocean floor, making it more
than 50m ( 165 ft) taller than Toronto's CN Tower. |
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Tallest Fully Rotating Tower |
The Glasgow Tower at the Glasgow Science
Centre, Glasgow, Strathclyde, UK, is 127m (416 ft) tall and is the
tallest tower in the world capable of fully rotating through 360 degrees
from base to top. It opened in spring 2001. |
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Tallest Structure Ever |
The all-time height record for any structure
is the guyed Warszawa Radio mast at Konstantynow, 96 km ( 60 miles)
north-west of the capital of Poland. The mast was designed by Jan Polak
and, prior to it fall during renovation work on 10 Augest 1991, it stood
646.38m (2,120 ft 8 in) tall and weighed 550 tonnes (1,212,500 ib0. It
was completed on 18 July 1974 and put into operation on 22 July 1974.
The tallest structure in the world today is a stayed television transmitting
tower 629m (2,063 ft) tall, between Fargo and Blanchard, North Dakota,
USA. It was built for Channel 11 of KTHI-TV in 30 days (2 October to 1
November 1963) by 11 men from Hamilton Erection, Inc (USA). From that
time until the completion of the Warszawa Radio mast, the tower was the
tallest structure in the world, a title that it regained following
collapse of the Warszawa mast. |
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Highest habitable Floor in a Skyscraper |
Chicago's Sears Tower has the
highest habitable floor of any skyscraper. Its 110 storeys rise to 443m
(1,454 ft). Although the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur is the world's
tallest office building, its top floor (the 88th) is around 60m (200ft)
lower. |
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Largest Mud Building |
The Grand Mosque in Djenne, Mali,
measuring 100m (328ft) long and 40m (131 ft) wide, is the largest mud
building in the world. The present structure was built in 1905 and is
based on the design of an 11th-century mosque. Rendered annually, it is
surmounted by two massive towers and inside there is a forest of vast
columns that take up almost half the floor space. |
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Largest Film Stage |
The world's largest film stage is
the '007' stage at Pinewood Studios, Bucks, UK, which measures
102x42x12m (336x139x41 ft). Designed by Michael Brown (UK), it was built
in 1976 for the James Bone film The spy who love me (UK,1977),
when it accommodated 4.54 million litres (1.2million gal) of
water, a full-scale section of 544,311- tonne (1.2million-lb)
supertanker and three scaled-down models of nuclear submarines |
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Largest Free Standing Advert |
The two faces of an advertising
sign at the Hilton Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, have a
total area of 6,512.3m2 (70,100 ft2). The sign is 85.03m (279 ft) high
and features more than 9.65km ( 6 miles) of neon and fluorescent
lights. |
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Largest Planetarium |
The planetarium at the Ehime
Prefectural Science Museum, in Niihama City, Japan, has a massive dome
with a diameter of 30 m (98 ft 5 in). It displays up to 25,000 stars and
viewers can also observe space as seen from other planets |
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Largest Airport Roof |
The Hajj Terminal at the
€2.8-billion ($5.6-billion) King Abdul-Aziz airport near Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, designed to cater for the annual influx of pilgrims, is the
world's largest roofed structure, covering 1.5km2 (0.6 miles2). |
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Largest Stadia |
Strahov Stadium in Prague, czech
Republic, completed in 1934, is the world's largest stadium. It has a
seating capacity of 240,000 people.
Opened in 1968, the largest covered stadium is the Aztec Stadium in
Mexico City, Mexico. It can accommodate 107,000 football spectators,
with nearly all seats under cover.
With a maximum seating capacity of 97,365 for convections and 76,791
for American football, the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA,
holds the indoor stadium record. It is 83.2m (273 ft) tall, covers 5.26
ha (13 acres), and cost $173 million (€78 million). It was completed
in May 1975 |
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Largest Retractable Roof |
The world largest retractable roof
covers the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in June 1989,
the roof covers 3.2 ha (8 acres), spans 209m (674 ft) at its widest
point and rises to 86m (282 ft). It weighs a massive 11,000 tonnes
(24.6 million lb) -the same as 6,000 cars-and takes 20 minutes to open
fully. When retracted the entire field and 91% of the seats are un
covered. |
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Largest Nightclub |
Privilege nightclub in lbiza,
Spain, can hold 10,000 clubbers on its 6,500m2 (69,968 ft2) of dance
space, spread over three floors. this is the larger than an American
football field, which cover 5,500 m2 (59,202 ft2). One end of the venue
is sheet glass to allow the morning sun to shine through. A swimming
pool, fountains and gardens add to the ambience. The club is the venue
for the legendary Monday Manumission all-nighters
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Largest Art Gallery |
You have to walk an amazing 24km
(15 miles) to visit each of the 322 galleries of the Winter Palace
within the State Hermitage Museum in ST Petersburg, Russia. The
galleries house nearly three million works of art. |
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Largest Library |
Founded in 1800, the US library of
Congress in Washington DC, USA, contains more than 125,198,175 items.
The collection include 18 million books, 2.5 million recordings, 12
million photographs, 4.5 million maps and 54 manuscripts on its 856km
(532 miles) of shelving. The library takes up 265,000m2 (2.85 million
ft2) of the capitol Hill buildings with additional offices world-wide. |
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Largest Museums |
The American Museum of Natural
History in New York City, USA, founded in 1869, comprises a total of 23
interconnected buildings. The buildings of museum and the
planetarium contained 111,000m2 (1.2 million ft2) of the floor space,
accommodating more than 30 million artifacts and specimens, and the
museum attracts approximately three million visitors each year.
Comprising 16 museums and the National Zoological Park in Washington
DC, USA, the Smithsonian Institution contains over 140 million items and
has over 6,000 employees |
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Largest Cinema Complex |
Kinepolis Madrid, which opened in
Madrid, Spain, on 17 September 1998, is the world's largest cinema
complex. It has a total seating capacity of 9,200 for its 25 screens
which, individually, can seat between 211 and 996 people. |
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Largest Pyramid |
The largest pyramid, and the
largest monument ever constructed , is the QuetzalcÓatl
Pyramid at Cholula de Rivadavia, 101 km (63 miles) south-east of Mexico
City, Mexico. It is 54m (177 ft) tall, and its base covers an area of
nearly 18.2 ha (45 acres). It total volume has been estimated at 3.3
million m3 (116.5 million ft3), compared with the volume of 2.4 million
m3 (84.8 million ft3) for the Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops), the largest
pyramid in Giza, Egypt. |
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Largest Wind Generator |
The Mod-5B generator in Oahu,
Hawaii, USA, has two giant blades measuring 97.5m (320 ft) from tip to
tip, the same as the height of a 25 storey building. The turbine
produces 3,200kw (4,290 hp) when the wind reaches 51 km/h (32 mph). |
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Largest Wind Tunnel |
The largest test section at the
NASA Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, Palo Alto, California, USA,
measures 36x24m (118x79 ft). It is powered by six giant 17,000-KW
(22,500-hp) fans with blades measuring 12m (40 ft) from tip to
tip. |
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Most Capacious Building |
Boeing's (USA) assembly plant at
Everett, Washington, USA has an indoor floor area of 39.8 ha (98.3
acres) and a total volume of 13.4 million m3 (472 million ft3).Completed
in 1968, the building has to be big, because Boeing's 747,767 and 777
aircraft-among the world's largest-are assembled there. |
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Largest Shopping Centre |
West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada, covers an area of 492,000 m2 (5.3 million ft2) It cost
CAN$1.2 billion ($789 million or €700 million) and features more than
800 stores and services. Over 20,000 vehicles can park in the world's
largest car park. The mall also houses the world's largest
indoor amusement park, indoor waterpark and man-made lake. |
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Largest Film Studio |
Universal City, Los Angeles,
California, USA, is home to the largest film studio complex in the
world. The site, called the Back Lot, measures 170 ha (420 acres), and
comprise 561 buildings and 34 sound stages. It was built on the site of
a chicken ranch in 1915 and the first visitors were able to buy eggs on
their way out |
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Furthest Distance to move a Lighthouse |
To save the Cape Hatteras
Lighthouse in North Carolina, USA, from a receding shoreline, the
National Park Service (NPS) decided to move it around 0.8km (0.5 mile)
further inland. After replacing its granite base with steel supports and
hydraulic jacks on rollers, engineers began moving the 63-m-high (207
ft) lighthouse along a specially designed track on 17 June 1999. It
reached its destination, around 883 m (2,900 ft) from its original
location, on 9 July 1999 |
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Deepest Road Tunnel |
The Hitra Tunnel in Norway,
linking the mainland to the island of Hitra, reaches a depth of 264m
(866 ft) below sea level. The tunnel is 5.6 km (3.8 miles) long, with
three lanes, and was opened in December 1994. It is so deep that if you
were to use its floor as the foundation for a building, you would need
to build a 66-storey tower before reaching the surface of the sea above. |
Source : Information below were collected from
different kind of sources, such as magazine, newspaper, internet, Guinness World
Records,
Book Of Facts ( Readers' Digest ) and others.
www.often.tk, last modified : February 22, 2003 |