Tallest Buildings in the World

Tallest Buildings in the World Since its completion in January 2010, the tallest building in the world has been the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the building called Kingdom Tower, being built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is expected to be completed in 2019 and would move Burj Khalifa to the second place spot. Kingdom Tower is expected to be the worlds first building that is taller than a kilometer (1000 meters or 3281 feet).   The Changing Sky-Scape Currently proposed as the worlds second tallest building is Sky City in Changsha, China to be built by 2015. Additionally,  One World Trade Center in New York City is also nearly complete and will be the worlds third tallest building when it opens sometime in 2014. Thus, this list is extremely dynamic and by 2020, the worlds current third  tallest building, Taipei 101, is expected to be around the 20th tallest building in the world due to numerous tall buildings being proposed or constructed in China, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.   The Top 20 Tallest Buildings 1. Worlds Tallest Building: Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Completed in January 2010 with 160 stories which reach 2,716 feet (828 meters) high! The Burj Khalifa is also the tallest building in the Middle East. 2.  Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia with 120 floors and 1972 feet tall (601 meters), this new hotel building opened in 2012. 3. Asias Tallest Building: Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan. Completed in 2004 with 101 stories and a height of 1667 feet (508 meters). 4. Chinas Tallest Building: Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, China. Completed in 2008 with 101 stories and a height of 1614 feet (492 meters). 5. International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, China. The International Commerce Centre was completed in 2010 with 108 stories and a height of 1588 feet (484 meters). 6 and 7  (tie). Formerly the worlds tallest buildings and known for their distinctive appearance, the Petronas Tower 1 and Petronas Tower 2 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia have gradually been moved down the list of the worlds tallest buildings. The Pertonas Towers were completed in 1998 with 88 stories and are each 1483 feet (452 meters) tall. 8. Completed in 2010 in Nanjing, China, the Zifeng Tower is 1476 feet (450 meters) with a mere 66 floors of hotel and office space. 9. Tallest Building in North America: Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Completed in 1974 with 110 stories and 1451 feet (442 meters). 10. The KK 100 or  Kingkey Finance Tower in Shenzhen, China was completed in 2011 and has 100 floors and is 1449 feet (442 meters). 11. The Guangzhou International Finance Center in Guangzhou, China was completed in 2010 with 103 stories at a height of 1439 feet (439 meters). 12. The Trump International Hotel Tower in Chicago, Illinois, United States is the second tallest building in the United States and, like the Willis Tower, is also located in Chicago. This Trump property was completed in 2009 with 98 stories and at a height of 1389 feet (423 meters). 13. Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, China. Completed in 1999 with 88 stories and 1380 feet (421 meters). 14. The Princess Tower in Dubai is the second tallest building in Dubai and in the United Arab Emirates.  It was completed in 2012 and stands 1356 feet (413.4 meters) with 101 stories. 15. Al Hamra Firdous Tower is an office building in Kuwait City, Kuwait was completed in 2011 at a height of 1354 feet (413 meters) and 77 floors. 16. Two International Finance Centre in Hong Kong, China. Completed in 2003 with 88 stories and 1352 feet (412 meters). 17. Dubais third tallest building is 23 Marina, a residential tower of 90 floors at 1289 feet (392.8 meters). It opened in 2012. 18. CITIC Plaza in Guangzhou, China. Completed in 1996 with 80 stories and 1280 feet (390 meters). 19. Shun Hing Square in Shenzhen, China. Completed in 1996 with 69 stories and 1260 feet (384 meters). 20. Empire State Building in New York, New York state, United States. Completed in 1931 with 102 stories and 1250 feet (381 meters). Source Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

Merriam-Websters 2015 Word of the Year Isnt Even a Word

Merriam-Websters 2015 Word of the Year Isnt Even a Word Merriam-Webster’s 2015 Word of the Year Isn’t Even a Word Merriam-Webster’s 2015 Word of the Year Isn’t Even a Word By Mark Nichol The selection of -ism as Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year should be invalidated on a technicality- the dictionary publisher might choose, instead, to refer to the Morpheme of the Year- but the choice is an apt one, as multiple concepts whose names include that suffix have dominated recent public discourse. Merriam-Webster selects the Word of the Year and its competitors on the basis of the number of times visitors to its website search for a particular word and according to how strikingly that figure compares to the number of lookups from the previous year. Based on the results for 2015, the American public, apparently, is preoccupied with isms. Topmost among -ism words in the public consciousness, perhaps, is terrorism, a term referring to acts of violence perpetrated to intimidate people for political ends. Though terrorism has seemed to gain ubiquity only in the last couple of decades- in the United States, the terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, prompted the nation’s preoccupation with the concept- the word was first used in the late eighteenth century, and of course the strategy is as old as political organization. A tangentially related concept, racism- referring to bigotry on the basis of ethnic origin- was also a popular search item at Merriam-Webster.com last year. (The intersection occurs because radical Muslims have been responsible for some notable recent atrocities in the United States and abroad, and many people conflate followers of Islam with a specific ethnic identity. However, though Islam began in Arabia and many early followers of the religion were Arabs, like Christianity, it is a worldwide phenomenon whose practitioners come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.) The term is also in the news because many people view some of 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views and proposed policies as racist. In addition, because of a rash of incidents across the United States in which white police officers have appeared to use excessive force against black crime suspects, many observers say that racism remains one of the most significant problems in American society. Another ism that Merriam-Webster highlighted is socialism. The term, referring to a political system in which the government controls the means of production and distribution of goods, is newsworthy for two reasons: Since early in the first of President Obama’s two terms, he has championed what are widely perceived as socialistic policies such as nationalized health care, and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, has received much publicity for discussing policies and programs associated with socialism. That term, thanks to political upheavals and international conflicts throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is fraught with negative connotation, so it’s no surprise that people have sought to investigate its meaning. (I’ll write about socialism and the related term communism in an upcoming post.) In my first paragraph, I suggested that -ism is ineligible for Word of the Year recognition because it’s not a word; it’s a morpheme, a unit of meaning (usually a prefix or a suffix) that is not an independent component of language. But later in the post, I twice wrote ism (once in plural form, and then in singular construction) as if it’s a word. Why? Because it is a word, used to refer collectively to a nebulous set of social concepts. But -ism, by virtue of that hyphen, is a mere morpheme with a different meaning: Unlike ism, it does not stand on its own to refer to a category of concepts; it is a suffix subordinate to the many nouns it serves, altering the noun’s meaning to denote a system of thought related to that noun. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Punctuating â€Å"So† at the Beginning of a SentenceCapitalization Rules for the Names of GamesDealing With A Character's Internal Thoughts