A skyscraper is an extremely tall building, usually with many floors where people live or work.

The first true skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, rose ten stories in 1885. What made it revolutionary wasn't just its height but how it was built: instead of thick stone walls holding everything up, it used a steel frame, like a skeleton, that could support much greater weight. This invention changed cities forever. Today's skyscrapers can reach over 100 stories, with the Burj Khalifa in Dubai standing at a staggering 163 floors.

Skyscrapers solve a practical problem: when land is expensive and space is limited, building up instead of out makes sense. They pack offices, apartments, restaurants, and shops into a small footprint. Walking through a city filled with skyscrapers, you feel dwarfed by these towers of steel and glass, each one a vertical city of its own. The engineering required to build them involves solving enormous challenges: how to keep them standing in earthquakes and high winds, how to move thousands of people up and down efficiently, and how to supply water and electricity to the top floors safely.