NEW YORK, May 20 — Thanks to three-dimensional technology, an animation studio is showing us just how small we are compared to the world’s many monuments. One of its latest projects — which is a hit on YouTube, with over a million views — is a size comparison featuring the likes of Stonehenge in the UK, as well as the Statue of Unity in India and Machu Picchu in Peru.
Whether it’s the most beautiful beaches, the best-value city breaks, the most affordable restaurants, or the top spots off the beaten track, the tourism industry is full of all kinds of rankings that give travellers inspiration. But some of the world’s major destinations can be all the more fascinating when considered in terms of their true scale. This is precisely what GlobalData achieves with its three-dimensional comparisons, published on YouTube.
Exceeding 1.3 million views, one of its latest creations is a ranking of the world’s tallest monuments, comparing them to an average sized human, measuring 170 cm. In the video, viewers can spend 15 minutes taking in sites as diverse as the Motherland Monument in Kiev, Ukraine (102 metres high), Big Ben in London (96 metres), the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta, Indonesia (137 metres high), the Victory Monument in Moscow, Russia (141.8 metres high), the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt (146.6 metres high), Cologne Cathedral in Germany (157 metres high), and the Great Wall of China, standing at an altitude of over 1,000 metres, and Machu Picchu in Peru, at an altitude of 2,430 metres.
This mesmerising video is not the only achievement of the 3D studio, whose latest project has already garnered over a million views since its release in early March. It ranks the statues of the world according to their size, by removing their bases from the calculations. It reveals that the statue of Shiva located in the Swiss town of Meyrin, in the canton of Geneva, is the smallest of the ranking, standing two metres tall. It is largely surpassed by the statue of David in Florence (5.17 metres) or that of Lincoln in Washington (5.8 metres). The animation incorporates characters helping viewers to take in the magnitude of certain achievements, such as the Grand Buddha of Ling Shan in Jiangsu, China (79 metres high without the base) or the Statue of Unity paying tribute to the Indian statesman, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (182 metres, without the base), located near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the state of Gujarat in India. Since its inauguration in 2018, it is, in fact, the largest statue in the world.
These 3D animations landed on TikTok at the beginning of May, where the creators propose more unusual rankings, including, more recently, a size comparison of characters from the famous One Piece manga. — ETX Studio
