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The Saudi Royal family has unveiled plans to construct the world's tallest building, Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, said to be one mile high.

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The 275-floor Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia will be 1.6km tall and will be twice the height of the world's current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The tower will include hotels, offices, luxury apartments and a shopping centre. It will also feature 12 million cubic square feet of interior space, which is about 12 times more than Canary Wharf in East London. It will be five times higher than the Shard of Glass in south London, which will be Britain’s tallest building post completion in 2012.

It will feature a balancing pendulum structure in its top to prevent it from toppling over. When the project was first announced in 2007, the architecture firm mentioned that the structure will feature wind-detecting sensors to direct stabilising aileron-like fins which will run along the length of the tower's frame to control resonant motion and drift.

The skyscraper will also be designed to be sustainable with a low environmental impact. It will be equipped with wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, heliostats and sewage treatment facilities.

It is being financed by the Saudi Royal Family-owned Kingdom Holding Company, which is the country's largest company. The Kingdom Holding Company will construct an entire city around the skyscraper instead of constructing the tower in the centre of the city. An 8.9-square-mile city will be built in the costal area of Jeddah, which can accommodate 80,000 people and a further million visitors to the tower.

Kingdom Tower is expected to cost £12 billion ($19.6 billion) to construct and it will take 12 minutes to reach the top in a lift.