In the heart of the desert where sand once stretched for miles and camels walked beneath the hot sun,

a tower now rises into the sky, so tall it seems to touch the clouds.

On a warm evening a visitor looks up from the base of the Birch Khalifa.

The glass and steel shimmer in the golden light as the sun begins to set.

The building towers above everything, so high that the top disappears into the haze.

It feels almost impossible, but it is real.

The Birch Khalifa is the tallest building on earth, a symbol of imagination, engineering, and the dreams of a city that

reached for the sky.

The Burj Khalifa stands in Dubai, a modern city in the United Arab Emirates, UAE.

This tower is more than just a building.

It is a record breaker.

At 828 meters tall, or about 2,717 feet,

it is taller than any other structure humans have ever built. It has more than 160 floors,

and it takes over a minute to ride the elevator from the bottom to the top. On a clear day,

you can see for miles in every direction, even beyond the borders of Dubai.

The story of the Burj Khalifa began in the early 2000s.

Dubai was growing fast.

It had become a center for business, travel, and design.

The leaders of the city wanted to show the world what Dubai

could do. They wanted to build something that had never been done before, a building so tall

and beautiful that people from every corner of the globe would come to see it. It would become

a new symbol for the modern Middle East. Construction began in 2004. The company in charge was

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