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The CN Tower, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the world's tallest freestanding structure on land, standing 553.33 meters (1,815 ft 5 in) tall. It is considered the signature icon of the city, attracting more than two million international visitors annually. Guinness World Records has listed the CN Tower as the world's tallest building since its completion in 1976. From a technical perspective, however, it is not considered a building by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which ranks tall buildings.
CN originally referred to Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower. Following the railway's decision to divest non-core freight railway assets, prior to the company's privatization in 1995, the CN Tower was transferred to the Canada Lands Company (CLC), a federal Crown corporation responsible for real estate development. Since local residents wished to retain the name CN Tower, the abbreviation is now said to expand to Canada's National Tower rather than the original Canadian National Tower; however, neither of these is commonly used.
The CN Tower consists of several substructures. The main portion of the Tower consists of a hollow concrete hexagonal pillar containing the elevators, stairwells and power and plumbing connections. On top of this is the 102 metre (335 ft) metal broadcast antenna, carrying TV and radio signals. There are two main visitor areas: the main seven-story deck level located at 330 metre (1,100 ft), and the higher Sky Pod (formerly known as Space Deck) at 447 metres (1,465 ft), just below the metal antenna. Between the two areas the structure is "bare" and the hexagonal shape can be seen, but below the main deck three large supporting legs give the tower the appearance of a large tripod. Confusingly, the main level used to be known as “SkyPod”, a name which now refers to the higher level.
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