Tokyo Skytree: The World’s Tallest Tower, By the Numbers

Thousands flocked to the opening of Tokyo's newest landmark on Tuesday; here's what you need to know about it.

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Kyodo / Reuters

A view of Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest broadcasting tower at 634 metres (2080 feet), in Tokyo in this photo taken by Kyodo on May 21, 2012. The tower opened to the public on Tuesday, with hundreds of people entering the tower and its large shopping mall.

Okay, so technically it’s merely a tower — not an actual skyscraper — but the Tokyo Skytree is now the tallest such structure in the world, at 2,080 feet. It opened to the public on Tuesday amidst much fanfare, with thousands of tourists waiting in long lines to be one of the first to ride to its dizzying observation platform. (Technically, a tower is a structure which has usable floor space for less than half its height. The world’s tallest skyscraper — and structure of any kind — is still the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands 2,716 feet tall.)

The new Tokyo landmark is twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and is surrounded by a shopping center that stands to gain an obvious tourist attraction as people clamor for 360-degree views of the city.

(LIST: Top 10 Tallest Structures in the World)

A look at the Tokyo Skytree, by the numbers:

1: Number of weeks people reportedly stood in line to get a ticket to ride a Skytree elevator on Tuesday

2: Number of months that trips up the tower are fully booked — through July 11, to be exact

4: Number of years it took to build the Skytree

6: Number of television stations that will use Skytree for transmission

300: Shops and restaurants surrounding the new development

1,148: Height, in feet, of the first observation deck. A ticket this far costs 2,000 yen ($25)

1,476: Height, in feet, of the second observation deck

2,080: Height, in feet, of the tower, surpassing the 1,968-foot tall Caton Tower in China as the tallest in the world

200,000: Expected first-day visitors, despite the rainy weather in Tokyo. Of these visitors, 8,000 were set to ride to the top of Skytree

32 million: Expected visitors to the tower in its first year

$1.8 billion: Cost, in U.S. dollars, to develop the tower

PHOTOS: The World’s New Tallest Building