It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes who said “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth.” The quote, a reference to the power of the lever, is an example of humanity’s fascination with moving heavy objects.
In keeping with that spirit, 24/7 Wall St. has identified the heaviest objects in the world. Once we identified the heaviest object of a certain type, only the heaviest object in each category was listed. For example, the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the largest of a group of pyramids. Further, we did not consider objects that do not have accurately measured weights. The following list contain examples of the world’s heaviest objects in different categories.
Many of the world’s heaviest objects are from the time of the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Chinese. Some of those objects, as well as more contemporary items such as the Bell of Good Luck in China, appear on the list.
Click here to see the heaviest objects in the world.
Click here to see our detailed findings and methodology.
Click here to see the lightest objects in the world.
Source: SergeyVButorin / Getty Images
25. Zil-41047 limousine
> Weight: 7,352 pounds
> Current location: Russia
> Age: 6 years old
The heaviest car in recent production is the Russian-constructed Zil-41047 limousine at 7,352 pounds, according to Guinness World Records. The vehicle has a wheel base of almost 13 feet. The cars were used by leaders of the Soviet Union until December 1991. In 2012, it was reported that the vehicle was rebuilt (they reportedly take six years to build) to be used by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Source: cornell.edu
24. Bell of Good Luck
> Weight: 254,000 pounds
> Current location: Henan, China
> Age: 17 years old
The Bell of Good Luck was cast in December 2000 and surpassed the Mingun Bell in Myanmar (Burma) as the heaviest bell in the world. The bell measures about 24 feet in height and is more than 15 feet wide. It is located near the Spring Temple Buddha, the world’s tallest statue of the deity.
Source: Steve Jurvetson / Wikimedia Commons
23. SAGE computer
> Weight: 550,000 pounds
> Current location: Various in U.S.
> Age: 61 years old
The world’s physically largest computer system, SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), was a AN/FSQ-7 device that first began operating in 1957 at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey and spanned 20 locations. The computers were used to analyze data pertaining to possible attack scenarios from the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War.
Source: Craig Dietrich / Flickr
22. Boulder
> Weight: 680,000 pounds
> Current location: Los Angeles, California
> Age: Unknown
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art ushered in 2012 the centerpiece of its outdoor art exhibit, Levitated Mass — a 680,000-pound boulder that was brought to Los Angeles from a quarry 105 miles away. It is believed to be the heaviest boulder ever transported, and it was brought to the museum by a 176-wheel truck.
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Source: Dmitry A. Mottl / Wikimedia Commons
21. Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo aircraft
> Weight: 1.28 million pounds
> Current location: Russia
> Age: Since 1980s
The Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo aircraft has the highest maximum takeoff weight of any aircraft. The plane originally weighed 1.2 million pounds when it was built, but its floor was strengthened, increasing the weight to 1.28 million pounds. Only two of these gigantic planes were ever built.
Source: Dave Price / Wikimedia Commons
20. Power station transformer
> Weight: 1.28 million pounds
> Current location: United Kingdom
> Age: Unknown
The heaviest object ever transported in the United Kingdom was a power station transformer that weighed 1.28 million pounds. When the transformer was moved to Bristol from Oxfordshire in 2013, it traveled at a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour.
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Source: vitroids / Wikimedia Commons
19. Radiation door
> Weight:1.44 million pounds
> Current location: Toki, Gifu, Japan
> Age: 24 years old
The world’s heaviest door is a radiation shield located at the National Institute for Fusion Science at Toki, Gifu, Japan. The door is more than 38 feet high, over 37 feet wide, and is almost 7 feet thick. It was installed in December 1994.
Source: Ralph Ellis / Wikimedia Commons
18. Man-made stone block
> Weight: 3.30 million pounds
> Current location: Baalbek, Lebanon
> Age: 2,000 years old
German and Lebanese archaeologists unearthed the heaviest man-made block of stone in 2014. The massive slab was found in a quarry in Baalbek, Lebanon. The stone’s size is 64 feet by 19.6 feet by 18 feet. Lebanon was a Roman outpost at the time the stone was shaped. Archaeologists think the block was supposed to be used for rites at an adjacent temple.
Source: NASA
17. CERN particle accelerator
> Weight: 4.0 million pounds
> Current location: Geneva, Switzerland
> Age: 10 years old
The Large Hadron Collider, which was fired up about 10 years ago, is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The collider is part of the CERN accelerator complex in Geneva, Switzerland, where scientists study the basic elements of matter.
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Source: NASA
16. Rotating service structure
> Weight: 4.86 million pounds
> Current location: Kennedy Space Center, Florida
> Age: 30+ years old
The rotating service structure of one of the launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is recognized by Guinness World Records as the heaviest item ever to be directly weighed. The structure provides protected access to the orbiter for space shuttle missions. NASA engineers decided to document the weight of the structure after it had been modified over a 30-year period.
Source: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images
15. Saturn V rocket
> Weight: 6.89 million pounds
> Current location: Kennedy Space Center, Florida
> Age: 51 years old
The Saturn V rocket brought humankind to the moon in 1969. It was developed by noted German engineer Wernher von Braun. The first Saturn V rocket was launched in 1967, and the 13th and final rocket was shot into space in 1973. Last year, Lego produced a model of the Saturn V consisting of 1,969 Lego blocks, meant to refer to the year humanity first landed on the moon.
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Source: Elsdorf-blog.de / Wikimedia Commons
14. Bagger 293 bucket wheel excavator
> Weight: 28.39 million pounds
> Current location: Niederzier, Germany
> Age: 23 years old
The Bagger 293 bucket wheel excavator is the heaviest machine capable of moving under its own power, according to Guinness World Records. The excavator is an earth-moving apparatus used at a coal mine in Germany that can unearth 220,000 tons of coal in a day.
24/7 Wall St.
Source: Zgpdszz / Wikimedia Commons
13. Spring Temple Buddha
> Weight: 36.60 million pounds
> Current location: Henan Province, China
> Age: 10 years old
The Spring Temple Buddha is the world’s largest statue, made from gold, copper alloy, and steel. Besides tipping the scale at more than 36 million pounds, the statue is over 420 feet tall — more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. The construction of the Spring Temple Buddha was announced after the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.
Source: Tim Porter / Wikimedia Commons
12. Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement
> Weight: 72.0 million pounds
> Current location: Chernobyl, Ukraine
> Age: Two years old
Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement is an arch-shaped building constructed at the site of the worst nuclear accident ever in 2016. The structure is designed to prevent the release of radioactive material still present at the site from the 1986 disaster and shield the location from extraordinary weather events.
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Source: U.S. Department of Defense
11. Akula-class submarines
> Weight: 96 million pounds
> Current location: Russia
> Age: 38 years old
The Akula-class submarines, the heaviest submarines ever built, were introduced in the early 1980s and have been the mainstay of the former Soviet Union’s naval nuclear capabilities. The submarines are more than 500 feet long and 75 feet wide. The last two of the Akula-class submarines are scheduled to be decommissioned in 2020.
Source: Andy Dunaway / USAF / Getty Images
10. The Washington Monument
> Weight: 162.24 million pounds
> Current location: Washington, D.C., United States
> Age: 130 years old
The Washington Monument, built over a 36-year period, was opened to the public in 1888. It stands 555 feet tall and the walls range in thickness from 15 feet at the base to 18 inches at the top of the obelisk. The Washington Monument is made mostly from white marble from Maryland with some stone from Massachusetts and Maine.
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Source: Fox Photos / Getty Images
9. Submerged communications cable
> Weight: 176.37 million pounds
> Current location: Under the oceans
> Age: Unknown
The first submerged communications cable were laid in the mid-19th century, and the first transAtlantic message was sent in 1858. That cable failed, but a more reliable cable was laid in 1866. Submerged cables are typically 2.6 inches in diameter and weigh around 22 pounds per meter.
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Source: Nachoman-au / Wikimedia Commons
8. Freight train
> Weight: 199.46 million pounds
> Current location: Western Australia
> Age: 17 years old
The heaviest freight train pulled iron ore over a 170-mile stretch of western Australia in June 2001. The trip took 10 hours and 4 minutes. It was also the longest freight train ever, at 4.5 miles.
Source: Patrick M. Bonafede / U.S. Navy / Getty Images
7. Nimitz Class aircraft carrier
> Weight: 204 million pounds
> Current location: On duty at sea
> Age: 43 years old
The Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, named after the admiral who commanded the U.S. Pacific fleet in World War II, are the biggest warships ever built. There have been 10 nuclear-powered such aircraft carriers, with the first commissioned in 1975. The last of this group, USS George HW Bush, was commissioned in January 2009.
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Source: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
6. The Palace of the Parliament
> Weight: 1.55 billion pounds
> Current location: Bucharest, Romania
> Age: 24 years old
The Palace of the Parliament was started by Romania’s former communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu in the early 1980s as a monument to himself. It is now recognized as the heaviest building in the world. More than 1.4 billion pounds of steel and bronze were used to create it. Ceausescu never saw the completed project as he was killed in 1989 when the country’s communist regime collapsed. The building was completed in 1994 and contains the Romanian Senate and Chamber of Deputies.
Source: BoH / Wikimedia Commons
5. SSCV Thialf crane vessel
> Weight: 2.06 billion pounds
> Current location: Ocean
> Age: About 33 years
The SSCV Thialf, owned by Heerema Marine Contractors, is the biggest crane vessel operating offshore. The 661-foot vessel, which is operated by 736 crew members, has two cranes that have load-lifting capacity of more than 14,000 tons. SSCV Thialf has been operating for more than three decades. The facility is big enough to have a flight deck for a Boeing Chinook helicopter.
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Source: statoil.com
4. Gullfaks C installation oil storage facility
> Weight: 3 billion pounds
> Current location: North Sea
> Age: 28 years old
The Gullfaks C installation oil storage facility was the heaviest artificial object ever moved. It operates in the northern part of the North Sea. Gullfaks C, which stores and processes oil from the Tordis oil field, is more than 1,246 feet tall.
Source: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
3. The Great Pyramid of Khufu
> Weight: 12 billion pounds
> Current location: Egypt
> Age: 5,200 years old
The pyramids of Giza are among the heaviest objects humankind has ever created, and the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the heaviest of them. The Great Pyramid, also known as Akhet Khufu, consists of 2.3 million blocks of stone, each weighing about 2.5 tons. Khufu is one of three pyramids in Giza; the others are called Khafre and Menkaure. Other notable pyramids include Cholula and Teotihuacán in Mexico, and the Red Pyramid and Bent Pyramid in Egypt.
Source: VCG / Getty Images
2. Three Gorges Dam
> Weight: 20.82 billion pounds
> Current location: Northern China
> Age: 12 years old
Three Gorges Dam in northern China spans the Yangtze River and is the world’s largest hydropower project. It is so massive that if the dam created a reservoir of 42 billion tons of water at its maximum level of 574 feet above sea level, it would increase the Earth’s moment of inertia and slow its rotation. NASA scientists think this shift would lengthen the day by 0.06 microseconds.
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Source: China Photos / Getty Images
1. Great Wall of China
> Weight: 116 billion pounds
> Current location: Northern China
> Age: 400+ years old
The Great Wall of China is the heaviest object ever built by humankind and likely always will be. The wall as we know it was constructed between the 14th through 17th centuries during the Ming dynasty. However, the idea of a physical barrier to repeal invaders dates back to the third century B.C. Contrary to popular belief, the 13,000-mile wall cannot be seen from the moon.
Detailed Findings & Methodology
The heaviest object on Earth is, of course, Earth. But despite Archimedes’ will, humanity has yet to move the planet. The objects on this list are either artificial constructs or were moved by artificial means.
In terms of actual weight, the heaviest object ever directly weighed, according to Guinness World Records, is the revolving service structure of the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, clocking in at 4.86 million pounds. The weights of structures such as the pyramids and The Great Wall of China are estimates.
Among the heaviest objects from modern times are oceanic drilling platforms, cranes, and dams. Items from antiquity represented on our list include the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Other pyramids such as the Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico and the Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt are among the heaviest objects ever built by humankind.
The heaviest object ever created is probably the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall, which extends more than 13,000 miles, took hundreds of years to build. It will probably always be humanity’s heaviest creation.
24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of the world’s heaviest objects based on information from sources such as the Guinness World Records, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as well as science, engineering, and travel websites. Given the logistical difficulty of actually measuring the weight of the objects considered, weight totals of these objects are estimates from the information sources we used. Virtually all of the objects were made or shaped by humankind.
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