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.
List of tallest buildings in São Paulo
The city of São Paulo is Brazil's largest city. Within the city and its metropolitan area, there are more than 1000 buildings taller than 100 meters, mostly concentrated in the downtown along the Paulista Avenue and in the neighborhood of Brooklin. At one time, the city was home to the tallest building in Latin America, the Martinelli Building, which opened in 1929 at a height of 130 meters. The Mirante do Vale, the largest building in the city, is 170 meters in height and was opened in 1960. Today, São Paulo is a city of low buildings, which rarely reach more than 80 meters and are mostly residential in nature. Municipal laws limit the construction of large skyscrapers and the tallest skyscrapers are located in three different regions. The city's financial center, fully occupied by skyscrapers, has moved. The city of São Paulo has the 10th highest number of buildings in the world taller than 90 meters, behind Hong Kong, New York City, Tokyo, Shanghai, Bangkok, Guangzhou, Chicago, and Singapore, respectively.