The Burj Khalifa opened tonight in Dubai. It’s the world’s tallest building, at 828 meters or 2,717 feet.

It knocks a building named Taipei 101 down to second place on the tallest building list. Blows it out of the water, actually, by 319 meters.

I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, or as near to the top as you can get. And now I need to get up to Dubai to go as far as I can up the Burj Khalifa — which is the 124th of the 160-or-so floors (the builders still haven’t specified how many it has), the open-to-the-public observation desk.

Anyway, this was huge huge huge in the UAE today, and in my newspaper, The National. Kept us hopping,  inside the office, near deadline.

Here is the main story that appeared in The National

And here is one that appeared in the New York Times. Not as enthusiastic, understandably.

Both sites have video and/or slide shows.

Fair questions can be asked about the utility of building a tower half-a-mile into the sky. In a climate as hot as this one, it would seem to make more sense to build into the ground, not above it, to avoid the searing summer sun. And how much energy is lost pumping water up to the 150th floor? Taking food and supplies up there?

But we probably should make allowances for rising countries to want to build the biggest, longest, tallest, widest buildings, bridges, etc.

England went through it in the 18oos, and then the United States had its own period of wanting to be No. 1 (Empire State Building, Golden Gate, Hoover Dam) … and now a need to cry “look at me!” has spread to Malaysia, Taiwan, China … and the UAE.

(At 369 meters, the Empire State was the world’s tallest building for 36 years, from 1931, The Burj Khalifa is more than twice as tall. Yeah.)

It seems pretty clear the Burj Khalifa (the name of which was changed from the Burj Dubai at the last moment, apparently as a warm fuzzy to the ruler of Abu Dhabi, which last month loaned $10 billion to Dubai to cover debt) will become the official postcard of Dubai and the UAE. What the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, the Burj Khalifa will be to the UAE.

And, yes, I will go see it, about 80 miles up the road, and take the double-decker elevator up to the 124th floor and look back down at the UAE — if clouds aren’t blocking the view. I’ll try to remember to chew gum, so my ears can pop. A time or two.