The Eiffel Tower has been moving crowds for more than a century and is undeniably one of the emblems of the city of Paris.
Some unusual and useful information about the Eiffel Tower
Work began on July 1, 1887, and was completed on March 31 1889. That’s 21 months of work. Three hundred workers and 50 engineers participated in the construction. It took two years, two months and five days to complete the installation of one of the most beautiful monuments in Paris.
Created especially for the duration of the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris, the Eiffel Tower was a temporary installation. It should have been unblocked after twenty years. It is often forgotten, but apart from the Universal Exhibition, this Tower was also built to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Faced with the consistent success of the Eiffel Tower in 1889 during the Universal Exhibition in Paris, the English launched a competition in 1890 to build a giant tower even higher on English soil. This was a reminder that Franco-English enmity has always existed.
The Eiffel Tower measures 324 meters and is to this day the tallest building in France. During the winter the Eiffel Tower shrinks by four to eight centimeters under the effect of the cold. In the summer and under the influence of heat the Tower may tilt a little, up to 18 centimeters was recorded in the summer of 1976. But the most impressive took place in December 1999. The storm Lothar and its strong winds caused the summit to move by 13 centimeters.
All you should know about the Eiffel Tower
The Chamber of Commerce in Monza, Italy, estimated the value of the monument at 434 billion euros. This is still 1/5 of the French GDP.
In 1889, among the first official visitors to the Eiffel Tower were Buffalo Bill and the royal family of England. They also left a few words in Gustave Eiffel’s guest book.
During its construction, the Tower was described as a “big giraffe with a big hole in it”. Among its detractors were Guy de Maupassant and Emile Zola.
After the 1889 World’s Fair, the residents signed a petition to have the Tower destroyed. Today, however, it is the Tower that makes the neighbourhood so valuable, and it is highly likely that the residents would oppose its dismantling or removal.
Today the Eiffel Tower’s nickname is “the Iron Lady”.
The weight of the Tower is 10,100 tons (more or less), and its steel structure alone weighs 7,300 tons.
This monument receives more than seven million visitors each year. And as such, it is the busiest paying tower in the world. It is worth noting that when it opened, it received no less than two million visitors during the 1889 Universal Exhibition.
Unusual Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower receives an average of four tons of souvenirs per day that will be sold by the Tower’s boutiques. There is also an average of seven tons of food delivered daily to the Tower’s restaurants.
On September 30, 2017, the Eiffel Tower welcomed its 300 millionth visitor. (300 million visitors in 118 years, an excellent performance) It is estimated that three-quarters of the visitors would have come from the four corners of the world.
Some more fun facts about the Eiffel Tower
The address of the Tower
Everybody knows the Eiffel Tower, everybody sees it, but do you know the address of the Iron Lady? Well, it’s 5 avenue Anatole France. It is located precisely between the Champs de Mars and the Seine. Going up the Champs de Mars you will find the building of the Military School and the nearest metro station, the metro station with the same name as the building of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
A gigantic mechanic
To erect this Parisian monument, it took the trifle of 18,038 pieces of metal. But it took more than two and a half million rivets to assemble this giant mechanic. It took the participation of 150 workers.
The exact height of this emblematic monument
The height of the Eiffel Tower is 324 meters, but regularly we find a significantly different height. Sometimes it is written that the Eiffel Tower is 312 meters high. If this figure of 312 meters is sometimes mentioned, it is merely because this is the initial height of the monument. The height of the Eiffel Tower has been modified with the addition of a radio and TV antenna. This explains why we sometimes find a significantly lower height.
312 meters or 324 meters, it doesn’t matter. Because what many people don’t know is that, above all, the Eiffel Tower remained the highest Tower in the world for almost forty years.
Three stories and three heights and 1,665 steps
Only three floors are accessible to the public. They are usually accessed by elevator. However, the brave can take the stairs. From its base to the top you have to climb almost 1665 steps, an undeniable physical effort.
The first floor is 57 metres high. Because of the very slender shape of the Eiffel Tower, it is necessarily the largest floor with 4,415 square meters. It is undoubtedly the most frequented floor of the Tower.
The second floor is a little higher. It is precisely 115 meters high, and its surface area is already almost three times less than that of the first floor. 1430 square meters is the surface area of the second floor.
The third floor is 276 metres high. A floor that overlooks the whole of Paris and allows you to take unique pictures. The third and last floor is also the smallest with only 250 square metres. This floor is also home to Gustave Eiffel’s apartment. Even if he never lived in this unusual dwelling, this small apartment has long housed a weather station.
The lighting of the Iron Lady
No less than 20,000 light bulbs are needed to light the world’s most famous Tower. And this is not for special events or special occasions.
A metal object exposed to the elements.
To cope with bad weather and to prevent it from rusting, the Eiffel Tower is repainted on average once every seven years. It takes nearly sixteen tons of paint to do the job. The colour for repainting the Tower is brown.
The shape of the Eiffel Tower
This Parisian monument called “tower” is, in fact, a pyramid with a curved face. And to be convinced of this, you only have to go near the Tower to understand the design and the exact shape of the monument.
Each side of this “pyramid with a curved face” is 125 meters long, and the arches have a span of 80 meters each. And to build the foundations, 48,000 cubic metres of earth had to be moved.
photo credits: Yann