Height: 137 metres (450 feet) or the height of 64 London telephone boxes piled on top of each other. It's currently the fifth tallest structure in London.

Total weight: 2,100 tonnes or the equivalent of 140,000 bicycles.

Total cost of the project: £75 million.

Length of experience: Approximately half an hour.

Rotation speed: 0.34 metres per second, a third of the average walking speed.

Number of people carried at any one time: Approximately 800 or roughly 25 people per capsule.

Annual visitor numbers: The London Eye attracts on average 3.75 million visitors per year which is more than some other wonders of the world: theTajMahal (2.4 million), Stonehenge (850,000) and the Great Pyramids (3 million).

Viewing distance: Up to 40 kilometres. On a clear day you can see Windsor Castle.

Number of people employed in construction: 2,000 including an entire alpine village that assisted in testing the capsule embarkation procedures.

Time taken to build: Less than 16 months from start of fabrication of components to operation. The construction met the crucial deadline of 31st December 1999 to be up and running.

Foundations: The compression foundation under the legs required 2,200 tonnes of concrete and 45 concrete piles - each are 33 metres deep. The tension foundation, holding the backstay cables, used 1,200 tonnes of concrete.


The EDF Energy London Eye is often mistakenly called a Ferris wheel. There are three reasons why this is not accurate:
• The capsules are completely enclosed, climate controlled and fully motorised.
• They are fixed to the outside of the wheel structure, not suspended from it.
• The entire structure is supported by an A-frame on one side only.