Tower

A tower is a high structure, usually man-made. The sea can erode the land and make a tower known as a sea-stack.

Related Topics:
Sea - Erode - Land - Sea-stack

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Purposes:

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• being impressive or beautiful
• saving surface area
• for the view
• for tourism
• for guiding: air traffic control tower, in particular at an airport, harbour control towers at harbours
• for security against coming in or getting out: a watch tower at a prison, concentration camp, fortress/castle, border/defensive wall; in some of these cases also to fire from;
• for watching out for fire, especially in a forest: fire tower;
• for spreading light: light tower, lighthouse
• for spreading sound: church tower with church bells, minaret of a mosque, bell tower
• for showing the time (clock tower)
• as storage for grain (silo)
• for increasing communications distances: radio masts and towers
• for use of the gravity: water tower, drop tower
• for meteorological measurements in different heights (measurement tower)
• as part of a suspension bridge or cable-stayed bridge
• for supporting power and signal cables (pylon)
• for access to rockets in order to prepare them for launch (service tower, supply tower)
• for the guidance of unguided rockets at launch launch tower)
• for physical experiments (drop tower, BREN Tower)
• for solar thermal power stations
• as chimneys
• for fixing nuclear bombs at tests (bomb tower)
• for drilling in the ground (drilling tower)
• in a swimming pool for jumping from a height
• for fun of climbing in it, for example on a children's playground
• the tower of a high slide, for supporting it and with stairs for reaching the starting point
• for gaining wind power
• as support structure for aerial tramways
• to gain access for maintenance or cleaning, e.g. scaffold tower
• for mounting thyristors in a HVDC (thyristor tower)
• as a heat exchanger for an industrial plant, a power plant or large building air conditioning plant, a cooling tower
• for attacking a walled city: siege tower
• to reach heaven (legendary Tower of Babel)
• for the production of bullets, a shot tower (German:Schrotkugel)
• for ski jumping and ski flying
• formerly, for drying of hoses in a fire station.

Skyscrapers are sometimes not thought of as towers.

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In the UK, tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks.

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In the USA the now-destroyed New York World Trade Center had the nickname the Twin Towers, a name shared with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Related Topics:
World Trade Center - Twin Towers - Petronas Twin Towers - Kuala Lumpur

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A tower wagon is a mobile tower for construction work, firefighting, rescue work, window cleaning, filming.

Related Topics:
Construction - Firefighting - Rescue - Window - Film

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A railroad tower allowed railroad employees to view the tracks and switches near the tower; it now refers to any location housing interlocking equipment.

Related Topics:
Railroad tower - Railroad - Switches - Interlocking

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See also:

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• Eiffel Tower
• Radio Tower Berlin
• Gerbrandy Tower
• Petronas Tower
• Tower of London
• Tokyo Tower
• World's tallest structures
• List of towers
• Inclined towers