Eiffel Tower - one of the most visited monuments in the World

The Parisian landmark is the tallest structure in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world it is named after its designer, Gustave Eiffel. More than 200,000,000 have visisted the infamous Parisian monument since its construction. This makes the tower the most visited paid monument in the world per year. The Eiffel Tower is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

When the tower was completed in 1889 it replaced the Washington Monument as the world's tallest structure. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Montparnasse Tower, however it will be surpassed by the Tour AXA (225.11 m — 738.36 ft). Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. The tower is actually painted three different colours in order to make it look the same colour to an observer on the ground with the colors changing from dark to light from top to bottom.

Eiffel (the engineer) originally planned to build the Eiffel Tower in Barcelona, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but those responsible at the Barcelona city hall thought it was a strange construction, and expensive, which did not fit into the city. After the refusal from Barcelona, Eiffel submitted his draft to those responsible for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he would build a year later, in 1889. The tower was inaugurated on 31 March 1889, and opened on the 6th of May. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. Yet because Eiffel took safety precautions including use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died.

The tower was met with resistance from the public when it was built, with many calling it an eyesore. (Novelist Guy de Maupassant — who claimed to hate the tower — supposedly ate lunch at the Tower's restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where you couldn't see the Tower.) Today, it is widely considered to be a striking piece of structural art.