Standing in the Champ de Mars, you feel small. Really small. Looking up at that lattice of puddled iron, it’s hard to wrap your brain around the sheer scale of the thing. People always ask how big is the Eiffel Tower, usually expecting a simple number. But it isn't just about one measurement. The "Iron Lady" is a moving target, literally. Depending on the sun, the wind, and whether or not there’s a new antenna on top, her height changes.
She’s a giant.
When Gustave Eiffel finished his masterpiece for the 1889 World’s Fair, it was the tallest man-made structure on the planet. It held that title for 41 years. Then the Chrysler Building went up in New York and stole the crown by a measly few meters. But size isn't just height. It’s the 10,100 tons of weight. It’s the 2.5 million rivets holding it together. It’s the fact that the four base pillars sit in a square that could fit a small city block.
The vertical truth: Measuring the height
So, let's get into the weeds. If you measure from the ground to the very tip of the current broadcasting antenna, the Eiffel Tower stands at 330 meters. In feet, that’s about 1,083.
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But wait.
If you look at older textbooks, you’ll see 300 meters. That was the original height in 1889. Over the decades, as telecommunications evolved, France kept sticking new antennas on top. In 2022, a digital radio antenna was airlifted by helicopter to the summit, adding another six meters. So, the tower literally grows every few decades because of human intervention.
Then there’s the heat.
Iron expands when it gets hot. On a blistering July day in Paris, the thermal expansion can cause the metal to grow. The tower can actually become up to 15 centimeters taller in the summer. Think about that for a second. The entire structure stretches. Conversely, in the winter, it shrinks. It’s a living, breathing piece of engineering. It also tilts. If the sun hits one side of the tower more than the others, the iron on that side expands, causing the top to tilt up to 15 centimeters away from the sun.
Breaking down the levels
You don’t just "go to the top." You experience the tower in stages, and each stage has its own massive footprint.
The first floor is roughly 57 meters up. It doesn't sound like much until you’re standing on the glass floor looking down at the tourists below who look like ants. This level alone is over 4,000 square meters. It’s huge. You’ve got a post office, a theater, and even a seasonal ice rink sometimes.
Move up to the second floor at 115 meters. This is where most people realize the tower is more than just a view. It’s a destination. The Jules Verne restaurant is tucked away here. To get here, you can take the elevators, or if you’re feeling masochistic, you can climb the stairs. There are 674 steps just to reach the second level. Total steps to the top? 1,665. But the public can only climb to the second floor; after that, the elevators are mandatory for safety.
The summit is the "small" part, situated at 276 meters. It’s not actually small. It can hold about 800 people at once. Up there, you’ll find Gustave Eiffel’s private office. He used to hang out there with Thomas Edison, probably talking about how big the world felt from that height.
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The weight of a legend
How heavy is it? It’s a beast. The total weight is roughly 10,100 tons.
The metal framework alone accounts for about 7,300 tons. If you took all that iron and melted it down, it would only fill the base square to a depth of about six centimeters. That speaks to how incredibly efficient the design is. It’s mostly air. Gustave Eiffel was a bridge builder, and he knew how to make things strong without making them solid blocks of stone.
The paint adds weight too. Every seven years, a team of roughly 25 painters crawls all over the structure. They use brushes—no sprayers allowed—and they apply about 60 tons of paint. They do this to prevent the iron from rusting away. Honestly, the tower was only supposed to stay up for 20 years. It was almost torn down in 1909. It only survived because the military realized it was the perfect place for a giant radio antenna. Size, in this case, saved its life.
The footprint and the foundation
The base of the tower is a perfect square, measuring 125 meters on each side. That’s about 410 feet.
To support 10,000 tons on soft soil near the Seine River, Eiffel had to get creative. The foundations go down 15 meters. He used compressed air caissons to keep the water out while the workers dug. Each of the four massive legs exerts a pressure of about four kilograms per square centimeter on its foundation. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the same pressure a person exerts on a chair when they sit down. It’s remarkably well-balanced.
Why the wind matters
When you're that big, the wind is your biggest enemy. But the Eiffel Tower is a master of aerodynamics. Because of its lattice design, the wind passes right through it. Even in the most violent storms, the tower only sways about six to seven centimeters.
Engineers like Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, who did the heavy lifting on the design, calculated the curves of the four uprights specifically to transform the wind's force into a vertical load that the foundations could handle. It’s why the tower looks the way it does. The shape isn't just for "aesthetic" reasons. It’s math.
Putting the scale in perspective
To really understand how big is the Eiffel Tower, you have to compare it to things we know.
- It’s roughly the height of an 81-story building.
- It is nearly double the height of the Washington Monument.
- If you stacked three Statue of Liberties on top of each other (including the pedestals), you’d still be short of the summit.
- The tower is taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza by a long shot (which stands at about 138 meters).
It dominates the Parisian skyline because Paris has strict building height codes. Most buildings in the city center are capped at about six stories. So when you look at the tower, there’s nothing else to compete with it. It looks even more massive because of the contrast.
The logistics of a giant
Maintaining something this big is a logistical nightmare. It’s not just the paint.
Think about the lights. There are 20,000 light bulbs that sparkle every hour on the hour at night. There are five elevators that travel a combined distance of 103,000 kilometers a year. That’s two and a half times the circumference of the Earth. The hydraulics in some of those elevators are still based on the original 19th-century designs.
The "Iron Lady" also consumes a massive amount of energy. About 6.7 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. To combat this, they’ve installed wind turbines on the second floor (hidden in the ironwork) and solar panels on the visitor center. They even have a rainwater recovery system.
Common misconceptions about the size
People often think the tower is made of steel. It’s not. It’s puddled iron. This is a specific type of wrought iron that was state-of-the-art in the 1880s. Steel would have been heavier and more brittle at the time.
Another myth: the tower is the tallest thing in France. Nope. The Millau Viaduct is taller at 343 meters. And some radio masts in the French countryside beat it out too. But in terms of cultural "bigness," nothing comes close.
Some people also think the tower is "solid" because it looks dark and heavy from a distance. In reality, if you put the Eiffel Tower in a giant cylinder of air, the iron would weigh less than the air in that cylinder. It’s an incredibly light structure for its volume.
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Actionable tips for your visit
If you’re planning to see just how big it is for yourself, don't just wing it.
Book your tickets months in advance. The summit sells out fast. If you can't get summit tickets, get the second-floor tickets and take the stairs. It’s cheaper, the lines are shorter, and you get a much better sense of the engineering when you’re climbing through the beams.
Go twice. Once during the day to see the sheer scale of the ironwork and the rivets. Once at night to see the light show. The sparkling starts at sunset and lasts for five minutes every hour.
Check the wind forecast. If the winds are too high, they close the summit. It’s a safety thing. You don't want to get all the way there just to find out the top floor is locked off because the tower is swaying a bit too much for comfort.
Visit the Trocadéro. The best place to photograph the "bigness" is from across the river at the Trocadéro. It gives you the full perspective from base to tip. If you stand right underneath it, you lose the sense of the whole.
The Eiffel Tower is more than just a tourist trap. It’s a feat of 19th-century ambition. It’s a 330-meter-tall reminder that with enough iron and a lot of math, you can build something that defines a city for centuries.
Next time someone asks you about its size, tell them it’s not just about height. Tell them about the 15 centimeters of summer growth. Tell them about the 60 tons of paint. Tell them it’s a living monument that literally moves with the sun. That’s the real measure of the Iron Lady.
To get the most out of your trip, download the official Eiffel Tower app before you go. It has an "audioguide" that explains the engineering as you move through the different levels, giving you a much deeper appreciation for the scale than just looking at the view. Also, make sure to look for the names of the 72 scientists and engineers engraved on the tower; it’s a nice touch by Eiffel to honor those who made such a massive structure possible.