How big is big?

Turn a number in a table into something you can picture.

Choose a vesselCompare its length with

Horizontal length is to scale. The hull is illustrative. The tower’s vertical height is laid horizontally for comparison; this is not an image of the ship beside an upright tower.

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A length is only one kind of size

A long tanker can have less enclosed volume than a shorter cruise ship. A wide construction vessel may displace more water than either. Explore the comparison table to separate length, beam, capacity and gross tonnage.

Reference measurements

The sprint straight is defined here as 100 metres. The football pitch is a 105 metre example, not a claim that every pitch has that length. The Eiffel Tower’s official dimensions give its total height as 330 metres, including the antenna. Vessel lengths come from the references on each profile.