Burj Khalifa the tallest building in the world: of course located in Dubai

Burj Khalifa (Arabic: برج خليفة‎ ” Khalifa Tower”), is the recent name given to Burj Dubai, after its inauguration, in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (Arabic: خليفة بن زايد بن سلطان آل نهيان‎), (born 1948), the current President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and emir of Abu Dhabi.

Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and actually the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m (2,717 ft).Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010,and is part of the new 2 km2 (490-acre) flagship development called Downtown Dubai at the ‘First Interchange’ along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai’s main business district.

The total cost for the project was about US$1.5 billion; and for the entire “Downtown Dubai” development, US$20 billion.The project’s completion coincided with the global financial crisis of 2007–2010, and with vast overbuilding in the country, led to high vacancies and foreclosures. With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multi-billion dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. That’s the reason of the change of the name from Burj Dubai To Burj Khalifa.

Due to the slumping demand in Dubai’s property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower around 825 were still empty at that time.