History of the world's tallest buildings
The buildings that were the tallest secular skyscrapers, which excludes religious buildings, were:
The list of tallest buildings is based on the default metric of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), that of measuring to the highest architectural element. Other criteria would generate a different list. Shanghai World Financial Center is not on the above list, but it surpassed Taipei 101 in 2008 to become the building with the highest occupied floor. Using the criteria of highest tip (including antennae), the World Trade Center in New York City was the world's tallest building from 1972 to 2000, until the Sears Tower in Chicago (which already had a higher occupied floor than the World Trade Center) had its antenna extended to give that building the world's tallest tip; a title it held until the 2010 completion of Burj Khalifa. Petronas Towers and Taipei 101 were never the world's tallest buildings by the highest–tip criteria.
Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago)
The Trump International Hotel and Tower rises from the building's main entrance on Wabash Avenue to the tip of the architectural spire. Upon its completion in 2009, the building became the seventh-tallest building in the world, behind the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. On November 17, 2009, however, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which composes rankings of the tallest skyscrapers in the world based on various criteria, changed its standard for measuring a building's height. Prior to this change, a building's architectural height was calculated from the main entrance to the tip of the spire; new standards measured from the lowest open-air pedestrian level of a building. As the Trump International Hotel and Tower has a riverwalk entrance and pedestrian level below the building's Wabash Avenue entrance, the skyscraper's official height was recalculated as without a physical addition to the structure. According to the CTBUH, the recalculated height also made the tower the sixth-tallest building in the world, surpassing the Jin Mao Tower by . In January 2010, the building moved back to its position as seventh-tallest with the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.