How Tall Is the Statue of Liberty?

Throughout the many waves of immigration that New York Harbor has seen, one question has been on the lips of people sailing through: "How tall is the Statue of Liberty?" She is a famous New York City landmark and a fixture of the New York skyline, towering over New York Harbor and neighboring Ellis Island, where immigrants were once processed before being allowed to enter the United States.

The Statue of Liberty, officially entitled "Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World," was conceived by Edouard de Laboulaye in 1865 as a gift in recognition of the viability of a democratic government and in honor of the relationship France and America had developed during the American Revolution. De Laboulaye commissioned Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to design the statue.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer who later built his eponymous tower in Paris, built an innovative skeleton for the statue that allows her copper skin to move separately from the framework to mitigate the danger from the wind. Emma Lazarus's poem The New Colossus was written in 1883 as a fundraiser for the building of the pedestal.

The statue was first built in France, then disassembled and shipped to the United States in June 1885. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. She was designated a National Monument in 1924 and a World Heritage Site in 1984.

How Tall Is the Statue of Liberty? and Other Statistics

The Statue of Liberty rises 305 feet and one inch from the ground to the very tip of her torch.

• The statue itself is 151 feet and one inch tall, and stands on a series of pedestals.
• Her head measures 17 feet three inches tall by ten feet wide.
• Each eye is two and a half feet wide.
• Her copper skin is only 3/32 of an inch thick, yet it weighs 62,000 pounds.
• Her interior steel framework weighs 125 tons.
• Her concrete foundation weighs an astonishing 27,000 tons (54 million pounds).

Inside the statue, 354 narrow steps lead up to the crown.

• In the crown there are 25 windows, which are intended to symbolize precious gems and the shining rays of heaven.
• The seven rays on the exterior of her crown represent the continents and the seven seas.
• The torch, which is not accessible to the public, is made of copper and covered in gold leaf to reflect sunlight. The original torch is on display inside the museum in the pedestal.

Visiting the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum are open every day except Christmas, but to get there you must take a ferry from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan or from Liberty State Park in Jersey City. There are no entrance fees for access to Liberty Island, the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, or the Ellis Island Museum, but an adult ferry ticket costs $12 as of May 2010. Ferry tickets for children ages four through 12 are $5.

You need to make a reservation if you want to go into the pedestal. There is an additional $3 charge for a ticket that allows you to climb to the statue's crown.

You will have to pass through several security screenings in the course of your visit, and you may not bring large bags or luggage. If you are climbing to the crown, you may not bring backpacks, strollers, umbrellas, or any food or drink (even unopened). You are allowed only to bring a camera, or a cell phone if it is your only camera.

After your visit to the crown and seeing the spectacular view of New York Harbor, you will easily be able to answer the question, "How tall is the Statue of Liberty?" Certainly she is tall enough to serve as a beacon of hope and a symbol of our great nation for the past 125 years, and on into the future.