About Scale Explorer

Where the numbers come from

Every measurement is taken from a published source and cited on the object’s page, with the date it was checked. We prefer primary sources: space agencies, national parks and zoos, government transport agencies, manufacturers and the official sites of landmarks. Figures are stored exactly as the source states them, in the source’s own unit, and converted only when shown.

Many things do not have one true size. Animals vary, vehicles come in versions, and some figures are estimates. Where a source gives a range, we keep the range instead of picking one number, and approximate figures are labelled as approximate.

Sources used across the site: Airbus, Airships.net, American Kennel Club, American Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History (OLogy), American Society of Civil Engineers, Metropolitan Section (History & Heritage landmarks), Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Apple, Ball Corporation (Metal Beverage Container Operations), hosted by CanSource, Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS), BioNumbers, Harvard Medical School, Blue Bird Corporation, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, U.S. Department of the Treasury, CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Cell Biology by the Numbers (Milo and Phillips), CN Tower, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (The Skyscraper Center), Council on Vertical Urbanism, formerly CTBUH (The Skyscraper Center), Destination Niagara USA, Empire State Realty Trust (Empire State Building official site), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Energizer, ESO, European Space Agency, Federal Highway Administration, FIBA, Field Museum, FINA (now World Aquatics), Florida Museum of Natural History, Georgia Aquarium, Geoscience Australia, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (国土地理院), Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, Guinness World Records, Hapag-Lloyd, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Igor I. Sikorsky Historical Archives, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), International Astronomical Union, International Organization for Standardization, International Organization for Standardization (preview via iTeh Standards), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Rice Knowledge Bank, International Tennis Federation, ISO/IEC (preview via iTeh Standards), IUCN SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics (via PubMed Central, NIH), Lockheed Martin (Sikorsky), Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center (US DOT University Transportation Centers program), Major League Baseball, MarineLink (Maritime Reporter), Merck Veterinary Manual, Meyer Turku, MRS Bulletin (via PubMed Central, NIH), Musgrave Pencil Company, NASA, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (Watch the Skies blog), NASA Science, NASA Science (Photojournal), NASA Space Place, NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, National Basketball Association, National Congress on School Transportation (copy hosted by the Maine Department of Education), National Football League, National Football League (NFL Football Operations), National Geographic, National Hockey League, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, National Park Service, National Park Service, Grand Canyon National Park, National Park Service, Redwood National and State Parks, Natural History Museum, London, NatureSpot (Leicestershire and Rutland wildlife recording), Naval Technology, New Flyer of America, Niagara Falls State Park (New York), Niagara Parks Commission, NIST (CODATA 2022), NOAA Fisheries, NOAA Institutional Repository (Deep Sea Research Part I, 2021), NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA National Ocean Service, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Northern Territory Government (Be Crocwise), NSF NOIRLab, Oklahoma State University, Breeds of Livestock, Oklahoma State University, Department of Animal and Food Sciences, Opera della Primaziale Pisana, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere (via PubMed Central), Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives (via PubMed Central, NIH), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy (Building Energy Codes Program), PalDat - Palynological Database, Parco archeologico del Colosseo (archived by the Internet Archive), Parks Australia, Payload, Polar Bears International, Port of Hamburg (Hafen Hamburg Marketing), Queensland Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library, Santuário Cristo Redentor (Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro), Save the Redwoods League, Scientific American, Seattle Department of Transportation (Streets Illustrated), SETE (official Eiffel Tower site, toureiffel.paris), read via Internet Archive capture of 10 Sep 2026, SETE (official Eiffel Tower site, toureiffel.paris), read via Internet Archive capture of 21 Sep 2026, SETE (Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel), copy hosted by tarifs.org, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (via PubMed Central, NIH), Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Ocean (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History), Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Shorefishes of the Greater Caribbean), Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Shorefishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific), Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Space Needle, Space Needle (archived by the Internet Archive, 2016), SpaceX, The IFAB, The International Football Association Board (IFAB), The Kathmandu Post, The Marine Mammal Center, The R&A (with the USGA), The University of Texas at Austin, Ticonderoga (Dixon Ticonderoga Company), TOKYO SKYTREE (official site), Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Turismo Roma (Roma Capitale), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Geological Survey, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, U.S. National Park Service, U.S. National Park Service, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, U.S. Navy, UK Parliament, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, United States Mint, University of California, Berkeley, University of Delaware Animal Science with Extension (article by Melissa Elischer, Michigan State University Extension), University of Florida IFAS Extension (EDIS), Featured Creatures, University of Guelph (eCampusOntario Pressbooks), University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy, US Bureau of Reclamation, US Census Bureau, US Navy, US Navy, Naval Air Force Atlantic, USDA Forest Service, Washington State University Extension (Hortsense), World Aquatics.

How to read the drawings

• Objects in one drawing share one scale and stand on the same ground line. The scale bar and the grid show real distances.
• Silhouettes are simplified outlines. The measured dimension (for example the length of a whale or the height of a tower) is exactly to scale; small details of the outline are illustrative.
• When a size is a range, the solid shape shows the low end and a faded outline shows the high end.
• When something is too small to see next to a much larger object, it is marked with ▲ and shown again in a zoomed-in view or a step-by-step zoom. Every zoomed view says that it uses a different scale.
• No perspective or 3D tricks are used: everything is a flat side view.

Units

Conversions use the exact international definitions: 1 foot = 0.3048 m, 1 mile = 1,609.344 m, 1 pound = 0.45359237 kg. Converted figures are rounded to the precision of the original source, so they never look more precise than the measurement they come from.

Privacy

There are no accounts, no cookies, no analytics and no tracking. All searching, comparing and drawing happens in your browser. The only thing Scale Explorer itself stores is your choice of meters or feet, kept in your browser’s local storage.

Corrections

Found a figure that is wrong or out of date? Please open an issue on GitHub with a link to a better source.