Mondo Knows Facts
The longest ship ever built was 458 metres long
The Seawise Giant was longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall
Launched in 1979 as a supertanker, the ship was lengthened in a Japanese yard and served for three decades under several names, including Knock Nevis. It was too large for most ports and had to unload at sea. It was finally scrapped in 2010 after being damaged in the Iran-Iraq war.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: ships, tankers, size
The longest ship ever built was 458 metres long: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The Seawise Giant was longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a records & extremes fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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