About Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is the Iron Lady of Paris, a lattice of wrought iron that was meant to be temporary but became the defining symbol of France. Built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially hated by artists as a "useless monstrosity," but its elegance and utility ultimately won the city over. It soars 330 meters above the low, zinc-roofed skyline of Paris, a lace-like silhouette that changes mood with the light.
Satellite views highlight its position on the Champ de Mars, a long green park that acts as a ceremonial carpet leading to the river. The tower casts a long, intricate shadow that rotates like a sundial hand across the city. Its four massive feet anchor it firmly, while the Seine flows just to the north, creating a perfect viewing axis from the Trocadéro gardens across the water.
At night, when it sparkles on the hour, the tower feels magical, a beacon of light in the City of Light. The view from the top offers a map of Paris unfolding in real-time. It is the most visited paid monument in the world, yet it retains a certain industrial grace. It is a triumph of engineering that became a triumph of romance.
Beneath the romance lies extraordinary engineering: 18,038 individually machined iron parts assembled with 2.5 million rivets, most driven by hand-held sledgehammer teams working from precarious platforms. Each of the four founding pillars is oriented to a cardinal direction and originally housed a hydraulic elevator built by Otis and Roux-Combaluzier, systems so mechanically complex that even today one of the four still uses its original 19th-century pistons. During the Nazi occupation, French resistance operatives disabled the elevator machinery so any German officer wishing to reach the summit would have to climb every single step—an act of quiet defiance recorded in the tower's own maintenance logs.