Standing 820 feet (250m) high, Ain Dubai (also known as the Dubai Eye), the world’s largest Ferris wheel, opened in the United Arab Emirates in 2021. Ain Dubai is 270 feet taller than the next highest Ferris wheel, the High Roller in Las Vegas, Nevada, which at 550 feet (167.6m) is the largest in North America. That difference is more than the height of the first Ferris wheel, designed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., which opened as part of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Considered another way, Ain Dubai is more than three times taller than the first-ever Ferris wheel, sometimes called the Chicago Wheel, which stood 264 feet (80m) high.
Ain Dubai is nearly twice as tall as the iconic London Eye, originally named the Millennium Wheel, which was dedicated on December 31, 1999, and stands 443 feet (135m) high. From then until 2006, when it was eclipsed by the 525-foot (160m) high Star of Nanchang in China, it was the largest observation wheel in the world.
Designed by Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Ain Dubai has 48 cabins, with a capacity of 1,750 passengers, although it generally carries a maximum of 1,400. By comparison, the original 1893 Ferris Wheel had 36 passenger cars, each featuring 38 wire seats and standing room for 22 people, for a capacity of 2,160 riders. The London Eye, designed by the husband-and-wife team of architects Julia Barfield and David Marks, has 32 rotating capsules, each carrying up to 25 people, for a total capacity of 800.
Although small wooden wheels had been in existence since the 1600s, the 1893 Ferris Wheel was the first metal wheel of its kind and was modeled after the then wildly popular bicycle wheel. Spectacularly, it was adorned with 3,000 of Thomas Edison’s new incandescent light bulbs. “It is an incredible sensation,” wrote reporter Robert Graves, one of its first passengers, “that of revolving through such a vast orbit in a birdcage.”
Ferris wheels past and present:
- The original Ferris Wheel was dismantled in 1894 and moved to Chicago’s Lincoln Park, where it opened a year later. It was moved again to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, before being demolished in 1906.
- Constructed in 1897, the Wiener Riesenrad in Vienna is the world's oldest Ferris wheel still in operation, though it was almost entirely rebuilt after sustaining damage during World War II.
- Although commonly called a Ferris wheel, the London Eye is technically classified as a cantilevered observation wheel because it is supported on only one side by an A-frame structure.
