Since man walks the earth, he attempts to dominate his surroundings and shows his assumed supremacy by creating tall and large buildings. The Egyptian pyramids, the Roman colosseum, the medieval cathedrals, they all served the purpose of expressing and confirming the dominating position of those who built them. Apparently, creating the largest or the tallest building in the world is strongly connected with the most dominant powers of their time. Now, why is building the largest or tallest tower in the world such a logical feature for powerful nations? Firstly, creating the tallest building in the world costs a tremendous amount of money. Therefore only powers that have accumulated enough quantities of money can afford to systematically build tall and large buildings. Some regional powers manage to make one incidental gesture (like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur), but their economical strength doesn't allow them to repeat this very often. Even very poor but centrally governed nations can give it a try, for example North Korea. In 1992 Pyongyang built the Ryugyong Hotel. With 104 floors and a height of 330 meters, it was one of the tallest buildings in the world in the early nineties. The North Korean rulers obviously intended to impress the world with this huge hotel. But it was beyond their means and the hotel was never finished. It stands now for over 13 years as a massive concrete shell in the very heart of Pyongyang and it was never used. {draw:frame} The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang (North Korea) {draw:frame} The Vatican Replica in Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast). A better example of this phenomenon can be seen in Yamoussoukro, a village in the African Nation of Ivory Cost. Former president Felix Houphouet-Boigny was born in Yamoussoukro and thought it to be a good idea to build a replica of the Vatican in his home-village. Although this is by far not the tallest building in the world, this jungle cathedral is even taller than the original! Now this...