History of the world's tallest buildings with no iron nails. It had a standing total height of 68 m (223 ft) or 80 m (262 ft), making it the tallest structure in East Asia and the tallest wooden structure in the world at the time of its construction. From the 13th century until 1894, the world's tallest building was always a church or cathedral. Old St Paul's Cathedral with its spire was completed in the 13th century. The central spire of Lincoln Cathedral surpassed Old St Paul's in the early 14th century. The Lincoln Cathedral's spire collapsed in 1549, beginning a long interval where the status
History of the world's tallest buildings moved to the Eastern Hemisphere. Malaysia was the first country to break the United States' record of constructing the tallest buildings in the world when the Petronas Twin Towers were completed in 1998. Taiwan's Taipei 101 was the next building to hold the record, beginning in 2004. Before the modern skyscraper era, many Christian churches and cathedrals, built mainly in England and Germanic territories between 1250–1894, comprised the tallest buildings in the world. Before the 13th century, the tallest buildings in the world cannot be conclusively determined. For instance, the Lighthouse of Alexandria (completed about 280 BC) has been estimated