image:Toronto's CN Tower.jpg

Towers are tall human-made structures that are always taller than they are wide, usually by a significant margin. Towers are generally built to take advantage of their height, and can stand alone or as part of a larger structure.

History

Towers have been used by mankind since prehistoric times. Some of the earliest surviving examples are the broch structures in northern Scotland, which are conical towerhouses. The Chinese used towers as integrated elements of the Great Wall of China as early as about 210 BC. These and later examples from Phoenician and Roman cultures emphasised the use of a tower in fortification and sentinel roles. For example, watchtower elements are found at Mogador from the first millennium BC, derived from Phoenician or Carthaginian origins, while the Romans utilised octagonal towers as elements of Diocletian's Palace in Croatia, which monument dates to approximately 300 AD.

A noted incomplete tower is the Hassan Tower in Morocco, where work was abandoned in 1199 AD, and the tower stands today as a monument in its incomplete state. Another well known tower is the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy built from 1173 until 1372. The Himalayan Towers are stone towers located chiefly in Tibet built approximately 14th to 15th century.

Etymology

Old English torr is from Latin turris via Old French tor. The Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the Illyrian toponym Βου-δοργίς. With the Lydian toponyms Τύρρα, Τύρσα, it has been connected with the ethnonym Τυρρήνιοι as well as with Tusci (from *Turs-ci), the Greek and Latin names for the Etruscans (Kretschmer Glotta 22, 110ff.)

Skyscrapers

A modern type of tower, the skyscraper, uses less ground space as a ratio of total building interior square footage. Skyscrapers are often not classified as towers, although most have the same design and structure of towers. In the United Kingdom, tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks. In the United States, the World Trade Center had the nickname the Twin Towers, a name shared with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.