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The record
250 m820 ft
Ain Dubai
United Arab Emirates
The record
The biggest Ferris wheel in the world is Ain Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates — 250 m (820 ft), overall wheel height.
Source: Wikipedia + Guinness World Records. Verified .
The most famous observation wheel on Earth does not crack the top five. The London Eye, for a quarter-century the picture-postcard shorthand for a big wheel, comes seventh here, outclassed by a row of Chinese and Gulf giants most visitors have never heard of. This countdown runs from 112.5 metres to 250 metres across nine countries, and it turns on two rules worth stating plainly.
The measurement is overall structure height, ground to the very top of the wheel — not the diameter, and not how high the cabins themselves climb. And every wheel here is turning today, which costs the list some famous names: Zhengzhou's 120-metre giant came down between 2022 and 2023, Melbourne Star has stood motionless since 2021, and Tokyo's Daikanransha was taken apart in 2023.
One nearly-qualifier is disqualified on type rather than height: the ride circling the roof of Guangzhou's Canton Tower sits higher than everything below, but it runs on a horizontal track and is not a Ferris wheel at all. For sheer altitude a wheel is outdone anyway: the highest observation decks and the highest cable cars climb further still.
Only one wheel has ever passed 200 metres — the gap between Ain Dubai and second place is 82 metres, which is taller than most city observation wheels are in total.
Two of these wheels are exactly identical in size — Cosmo Clock 21 and Tempozan match at 112.5 metres tall and 100 metres across, and were built by the same Japanese manufacturer.
The fifth-tallest wheel in the world does not actually turn — the Bailang River Bridge Ferris Wheel has no hub and no spokes, and its ring stays still while 36 carriages travel around the rim.
One wheel is built on top of a working road bridge — the Tianjin Eye straddles the Yongle Bridge, so traffic crosses the Hai River directly beneath the cabins.
China holds eight of the twenty-one places — more than any other country, with Japan next on four.
At 250 metres, Ain Dubai is not merely the tallest Ferris wheel in the world but the most lopsided entry on this list — it stands roughly half again as tall as the wheel ranked second, a margin nothing else here comes close to matching. Its 48 capsules are each about twice the size of a city bus, and a full load is 1,750 people, numbers that belong to a mid-sized building rather than a fairground ride.
The wheel rises from Bluewaters Island, a purpose-built island off Jumeirah Beach, which is why the view is the whole coastline at once: the Palm Jumeirah laid out below, the Marina towers stacked behind it, and the desert running away inland. It opened in October 2021 and returned to public operation in December 2024 following an extended engineering programme, and it remains the only wheel anywhere to have crossed the 200-metre mark.
At 167.6 metres — 550 feet — the High Roller is the tallest observation wheel in North America, and the tallest anywhere outside Asia and the Gulf. Its 28 spherical glass cabins hold 40 people apiece and take half an hour to complete a single slow revolution, long enough that the wheel sells the ride as a venue in its own right rather than a quick look from the top.
It sits at the end of the LINQ promenade, set back off the Las Vegas Strip, and the geometry is the whole point: the cabins climb straight up alongside the casino towers and then out over them, so the Strip's neon reads as a single continuous ribbon rather than a row of separate buildings. Some cabins run as bars with a bartender on board, which is a very Las Vegas answer to the problem of a thirty-minute rotation.
At 165 metres, the Singapore Flyer held the title of world's tallest Ferris wheel from 2008 until Las Vegas took it in 2014, and it remains the tallest in Southeast Asia. Its 28 air-conditioned capsules are large enough to walk around in, and a rotation takes about half an hour.
The wheel stands at Marina Bay, angled so that the climb delivers the Singapore skyline, the Marina Bay Sands towers and the Straits shipping lanes in sequence.
On a genuinely clear day the view reaches across the water into Malaysia and out to the Indonesian islands — a rare case of a city attraction from which you can see two other countries. It has weathered several long maintenance suspensions over the years and a change of ownership in 2014, and it continues to run daily.
At 160 metres, the Star of Nanchang was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world between 2006 and 2008, when the Singapore Flyer overtook it. It carries 60 gondolas around a wheel whose outer face doubles as an enormous illuminated display after dark, making it as much a piece of civic signage as a ride.
It stands in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province in southeastern China, beside the Gan River. The wheel is the city's most recognisable landmark and still draws heavy holiday crowds — close to 50,000 visitors passed through over a single May holiday period in 2025. It is the only wheel in mainland China ever to have held the world height record.
At 142.52 metres, the Bailang River Bridge Ferris Wheel is the strangest machine on this list, and Guinness World Records certifies it as the tallest centreless observation wheel anywhere. It has no hub and no spokes, and the ring itself does not turn: the structure stands still while 36 carriages crawl around its rim on a track, taking a full 30 minutes to travel the circumference.
It is built on top of a road bridge crossing the Bailang River in Weifang, Shandong, and locals call it the Eye of the Bohai Sea. The kite-grid steelwork that holds it up — some 4,600 tonnes of it — is a nod to Weifang's status as China's kite-making capital. It is the clearest illustration of why this list measures overall structure height: a wheel with no centre has no meaningful axle to measure from.
At 140 metres, the Sun of Moscow is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, having taken that title from the London Eye when it opened in September 2022. Its 30 enclosed cabins hold 15 people each, weigh over four tonnes apiece, and complete a rotation in 18 minutes and 40 seconds.
The wheel stands at VDNKh, the vast Soviet-era exhibition park in the north of Moscow, and replaced an older wheel that had occupied the site for decades.
Visibility from the top reaches roughly 50 kilometres on a clear day, which puts most of the city and a good deal of the country beyond it within view. At 90 metres, its wheel diameter is noticeably smaller relative to its height than most entries here — the supporting structure does more of the work.
At 135 metres, the London Eye is the shortest wheel in this list's top ten and comfortably the most famous. It is a cantilever design, held from one side only rather than braced on both, which is why it appears to lean out over the Thames rather than straddle the bank. Its 32 sealed capsules — one for each London borough — take 30 minutes to come round.
It opened on the South Bank in 2000 as a temporary millennium structure and simply never left, becoming the most visited paid attraction in the United Kingdom. The siting is what makes it work: the climb lifts you level with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben directly across the water, then above them. It closes for a fortnight of deep maintenance each January and runs every other day of the year.
At 133 metres, the Squirrel Windmill is the most thoroughly themed wheel on this list. Its 48 gondolas are moulded as acorns, each carrying eight passengers, and the whole structure is built around a squirrel motif rather than the usual anonymous steel ring — a decision that makes it instantly identifiable in a country with a great many large wheels.
It stands at Squirrel Town in Wuhu, Anhui province, and is known locally as the Eye of Wuhu. Its rotary diameter is 123 metres, unusually large relative to its 133-metre overall height, meaning the wheel itself dominates the structure and the supporting legs are comparatively short. It is the tallest themed Ferris wheel anywhere, and the only entry here whose design brief was clearly a character rather than a skyline.
At 128 metres, Bay Glory ties exactly with the Suzhou Eye — the two are separated by nothing at all, and their order here is presentational rather than a ranking claim. Bay Glory is a cantilevered design carrying 28 gondolas, supported from one side in the manner of the London Eye but on a considerably larger scale.
It opened in April 2021 at Qianhai Bay in Shenzhen, on reclaimed land in one of the fastest-built districts in China, and it looks out over the bay towards Hong Kong. The cantilever is the interesting part: holding a 128-metre wheel from a single side is a much harder engineering problem than supporting it from both, and only a handful of wheels at this scale attempt it.
1010. Suzhou Eye
Jinji Lake, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
At 128 metres, the Suzhou Eye is tied with Bay Glory for ninth place, and it is the only wheel on this list that got taller. The original wheel opened here in 2009 at 120 metres; a full rebuild raised it to its current height and replaced the cabins with 28 rotating capsules holding up to 25 people each, turning it from a ride into something closer to a set of airborne function rooms.
It returned to service in March 2025 on the bank of Jinji Lake in Suzhou Industrial Park, and a rotation now takes about 30 minutes. The capsules are individually themed and some are booked for meetings and dinners rather than sightseeing. Reference works still widely list this wheel at its old 120-metre figure, which is worth knowing if you see it ranked lower elsewhere.
At 126 metres, Sky Dream is the tallest Ferris wheel in Taiwan. It carries 60 cars of eight passengers each and takes a leisurely 25 minutes to come round, one of the slower rotations at this height.
It stands at Lihpao Discovery Land in Houli, on the northern edge of Taichung, as the centrepiece of a resort complex that also includes a racing circuit and a water park.
The wheel opened in May 2017 and is lit after dark in shifting colours, making it visible across the Houli plain from a considerable distance. Its position away from a dense city centre gives it an unusual outlook for a wheel of this size — farmland and mountains rather than towers.
At 123 metres, the Redhorse Osaka Wheel is the tallest Ferris wheel in Japan, a country that has built more giant wheels than almost anywhere else. Its 72 gondolas are its real distinction: they are glazed on every surface including the floor, so the ground is visible directly beneath your feet for the whole rotation.
It stands at Expocity in Suita, on the northern edge of Osaka, on the site of the 1970 World Exposition. From the top the view takes in the Osaka plain, the surrounding mountains and, on clear days, the city towers to the south. The transparent floor is not a gimmick added later — the wheel was designed around it, and it is the reason this wheel is singled out among Japan's many large ones.
1313. The Orlando Eye
ICON Park, International Drive, Orlando, Florida, United States
At 122 metres — a round 400 feet — the Orlando Eye is the tallest observation wheel on the east coast of the United States. Its 30 air-conditioned glass capsules hold up to 15 guests each and take about 20 minutes to complete a circuit, one of the quicker rotations among the wheels at this height.
It anchors ICON Park on International Drive, in the middle of Orlando's tourist corridor, and the view is the reason it is there: the theme parks spread out below, downtown Orlando to one side, and on an exceptionally clear day the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coast some 80 kilometres east. The wheel has changed names more than once since opening in 2015 and now trades again as the Orlando Eye under Merlin Entertainments.
At 120 metres, the Vinpearl Sky Wheel is the tallest Ferris wheel in Vietnam and the first of three wheels tied at exactly this height — it shares fourteenth place with the Tianjin Eye and the Changsha Ferris Wheel, and the order among them is presentational only. It carries 60 cabins and up to 480 passengers at once.
It stands on Hon Tre island off Nha Trang, part of the Vinpearl resort complex, which gives it the most unusual setting of any wheel here: the climb delivers the South China Sea on one side and the mainland coastal city on the other, with the cable car that crosses the bay strung out below. It opened in 2017 and remains the largest wheel in the country by a wide margin.
At 120 metres, the Tianjin Eye is tied with the Vinpearl Sky Wheel and the Changsha Ferris Wheel, and it is the only Ferris wheel in the world built directly on top of a working road bridge. It straddles the Yongle Bridge over the Hai River, carrying 48 transparent cabins of eight people each — 384 in total — through a 30-minute rotation with traffic crossing beneath.
That siting is the entire appeal. Rather than looking at a river from a park beside it, the wheel lifts you from the middle of the water, so the Hai River runs directly under the cabins and out through the city in both directions. It runs mainly in the evening, when Tianjin's riverfront illuminations are lit, and its lighting was comprehensively upgraded in 2025.
At 120 metres, the Changsha Ferris Wheel completes the three-way tie at this height alongside the Vinpearl Sky Wheel and the Tianjin Eye. It carries 48 cabins holding six passengers each and takes about 20 minutes to come round, making it one of the faster rotations among the taller wheels here.
It stands beside the Helong Sports Centre in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, and looks out over the Xiang River and the city's dense central districts. It opened in October 2004, which makes it one of the oldest wheels still turning at this scale — it is the oldest of the Chinese wheels here, built at a time when 120 metres was within sight of the world record. After dark the full ring is lit in shifting colour.
At 117 metres, the Diamond and Flower Ferris Wheel has an unusually large wheel for its height — 111 metres of diameter, meaning the ring is nearly as wide as the whole structure is tall, and the supporting legs are correspondingly stubby. A rotation takes about 17 minutes.
It stands in Kasai Rinkai Park on the Tokyo Bay waterfront, and its name comes from the lighting programme: after dark the ring is illuminated in patterns meant to read as a sparkling diamond or an opening flower. The view is the best argument for it — Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower and the Skytree are all visible from the top, and on clear winter days so is Mount Fuji, well over 100 kilometres to the west.
1818. Sun Wheel
Da Nang Downtown (formerly Asia Park), Da Nang, Vietnam
At 115 metres, the Sun Wheel is tied with the Star of Lake Tai, and it is the second Vietnamese entry on this list. It carries 64 cabins of six passengers each through a 15-minute rotation — a brisk turn by the standards of the wheels above it.
It stands in Da Nang Downtown, the riverside amusement park on the bank of the Han River, and it is designed to be looked at as much as looked from: the wheel is lit in elaborate colour sequences after dark and reads as the centrepiece of Da Nang's night skyline from across the water. The city has made a speciality of illuminated riverside landmarks, and this is the tallest of them.
At 115 metres, the Star of Lake Tai ties with Da Nang's Sun Wheel, and it was built out over open water rather than on dry land — an unusual and expensive way to site a wheel this size. It carries 64 cabins with a combined capacity of 384 people, and a rotation takes about 19 minutes.
Despite the name, it stands on Lihu, a lake connected to the much larger Lake Tai, at Wuxi in Jiangsu province. Building over water is the point: with no buildings immediately around it, the wheel has an uninterrupted outlook across the lake in every direction, and the whole structure reflects in the water beneath it when lit. It opened in 2008 and runs year-round.
At 112.5 metres, Cosmo Clock 21 is joint twentieth with the Tempozan Ferris Wheel — and the tie between them is exact in every dimension, not merely in height. Both stand 112.5 metres, both have a wheel diameter of 100 metres, and both were built by the same Japanese manufacturer. There is no honest way to separate them, so neither is ranked above the other. It carries 60 cars, seats 480 people and turns in 15 minutes.
Its distinguishing feature is the clock. The centre of the wheel is a vast illuminated digital timepiece, which is where the name comes from. It stands at Yokohama Cosmo World in the Minato Mirai 21 waterfront district, and the current wheel replaced an earlier, slightly shorter version on the same site.
At 112.5 metres, the Tempozan Ferris Wheel closes this countdown in an exact tie with Cosmo Clock 21 — identical height, identical 100-metre wheel diameter, and the same builder behind both. When it opened in July 1997 it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, a title it held for two years before Japan itself overtook it.
It stands at Tempozan Harbour Village on Osaka Bay, immediately beside the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, and a rotation takes about 17 minutes. The outlook covers the bay, the port cranes and the Ikoma mountains inland, and the ring is lit after dark in colour. Reaching this list at all is a reminder of how quickly the ceiling has moved: the wheel that led the world in 1997 now ranks below twenty others.
FAQ: The World's Biggest Ferris Wheels
What is the biggest Ferris wheel in the world?
Ain Dubai, on Bluewaters Island in Dubai, at 250 m820 ft. It has held the title since October 2021 and returned to public operation in December 2024. It stands 82 m clear of the second-placed High Roller in Las Vegas, by far the widest margin between any two neighbouring entries on this list.
How is the height of a Ferris wheel measured?
The rule used throughout this ranking is overall structure height: from the ground to the very top of the wheel, including the supporting legs. It is not the wheel's diameter, and not how high the cabins themselves climb.
The difference matters — the Sun of Moscow stands 140 m tall but its wheel is only 90 m across. The same care is needed with the world's tallest buildings, which are measured to their architectural top rather than to the roof.
Where does the London Eye rank among the world's biggest Ferris wheels?
Seventh, at 135 m. It was the tallest in the world from 2000 to 2006, and remained the tallest in Europe until the 140 m Sun of Moscow opened in 2022. It is still comfortably the most visited of the wheels here, and the shortest entry in this list's top ten.
Which country has the most giant Ferris wheels?
China, with eight of the twenty-one places — Nanchang, Weifang, Wuhu, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Tianjin, Changsha and Wuxi. Japan is next with four, all of them in the Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka areas. Vietnam and the United States have two each, and no other country has more than one.
Are any famous Ferris wheels missing from this list?
Yes, because it counts only wheels turning today. Zhengzhou's 120 m wheel was taken down between 2022 and 2023, Melbourne Star has stood motionless since 2021, and Tokyo's 115 m Daikanransha was dismantled in 2023. All three would otherwise have placed. Guangzhou's Canton Tower ride is excluded because it is not a Ferris wheel at all; it belongs with the highest observation decks instead.
