Good morning
In 1889, the Eiffel Tower was finished on the Champ de Mars, beside the Seine, for the Exposition Universelle. Its wrought-iron silhouette became the emblem of Paris, and in March 2022 a 6-metre radio antenna, lifted on by helicopter, took it from 324 to 330 metres.
The famous original is not always the biggest. Today we compare two landmarks with the buildings that inspired them, then look for the largest sea of sand somewhere other than the Sahara.
In today's edition
- The Tokyo tower that stands above its model
- The world's largest church, in Côte d'Ivoire
- A sand sea four times the Sahara's largest
- Three changes on the world map
Tokyo Tower · Fact of the day
A tribute that stands taller than its model
Tokyo Tower's red-and-white iron lattice was deliberately modelled on the Eiffel Tower. Its designer, Tachū Naitō, based his plan on the Paris landmark, and the finished tower opened to the public on 23 December 1958.
A tribute is usually expected to stand lower than its model. Tokyo Tower measures 332.9 metres, about 3 metres more than the 330-metre Eiffel Tower. It is also far lighter, at about 4,000 tons, because its frame is thinner and simpler, and about a third of its steel was scrap metal from US tanks damaged in the Korean War.
↗ Send this fact to a friend6.83° N, 5.29° W · Place of the day
Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Yamoussoukro
Yamoussoukro, the administrative capital of Côte d'Ivoire, is the home town of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the Ivorian president who had a marble basilica built there between 1985 and 1989. It rises 158 metres above the town, and Pope John Paul II consecrated it on 10 September 1990.
Guinness World Records lists it as the largest church in the world, ahead of St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, which inspired its dome and plaza. It covers 30,000 m², a total that includes a rectory and a villa. Its dome is more than twice as wide as St Peter's, at 90 metres, and its nave seats 7,000 people with standing room for 11,000 more.
Play today's Worldle↻ The feed · what moved
The Great Wall, measured end to end in 2012 A six-year survey by China's cultural heritage and mapping agencies, released in June 2012, measured the Great Wall across all dynasties at 21,196 km. That is about 2.4 times the 8,850 km mapped earlier for the Ming-dynasty wall alone.
Singapore's two road links, 1924 and 1998 Singapore's only road crossings to the Asian mainland both lead to Malaysia: the 1,056-metre Causeway across the Johor Strait, inaugurated on 28 June 1924, and the 1,920-metre Second Link at Tuas, opened to traffic on 2 January 1998. They end at Singapore's only two land checkpoints, Woodlands and Tuas.
The Atlantic's deepest point, measured in 2018 The deepest point of the Atlantic lies in the Puerto Rico Trench, about 160 km north-northwest of Puerto Rico, rather than in mid-ocean. Multibeam sonar measured it at 8,378 m in December 2018, and a crewed submersible dive that month confirmed 8,376 m.
Between issues
Flagle shows a flag one piece at a time and asks you to name its country. The fun lies in trusting a stripe or a colour early, before the rest of the design gives the answer away.
Play today's Flagle →Locate the country
Today's mystery shape · 22 September 2026
Today's silhouette is on the map above. Look at its coastline and borders, then take your best guess at the country. We reveal the answer tomorrow.
Guess it on Worldle →Yesterday, revealed
Yesterday, 21 September 2026
It was Serbia, Yesterday's silhouette is revealed above. If you got it right away, well done. If not, no matter: these shapes can be tricky, and every guess is good practice for spotting borders and coastlines next time.
21.50° N, 52.00° E · By the numbers
The largest sand sea, by area
The Sahara is the largest hot desert on the planet, bigger than the whole Arabian Peninsula, so it looks like the natural home of the biggest sand sea. The largest unbroken expanse of sand, however, is the Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia, at roughly 560,000 to 660,000 km². That is about four times the Grand Erg Oriental, the largest in the Sahara. Sand covers only about 20% of the world's desert surface, and the Sahara's dunes are split among many separate fields.
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See you tomorrow. The Teuteuf team
Sources: Wikipedia: Tokyo Tower · Wikipedia: Basilica of Our Lady of Peace · NASA Earth Observatory: 'Ar Rub' al Khali Sand Sea, Arabian Peninsula' (page last updated 31 January 2026) · Japan-Guide: Tokyo Tower · Encyclopædia Britannica: Basilica of Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro