Have you ever been to Italy? Let’s learn five intriguing Leaning Tower of Pisa facts for kids.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most famous landmarks in the world and lots of people visit every day to see the tower and take pictures. It was built to show off the wealth and power of Pisa, which was an important place due to its seaport. The tower wasn’t just pretty to look at though, it had an important job.
The Tower of Pisa contains 7 bells which would be rung for different reasons, all of the bells make a different note when rung. Because of the towers lean the bells are no longer allowed to be rung as the vibrations may damage the tower but you can still see the bells there today.
Pisa is not the best place in the world to build large towers because it has very soft and unstable soil. The name Pisa actually means marshy land in Greek and the marshy soil below the tower is the reason it leans over a bit. There are several other towers in Pisa that are also leaning because of the same problem.
They started building the Tower of Pisa in 1173 but it did not start leaning for another 5 years when the second layer of the tower had been added. Because they did not know how to fix the tower and there were wars happening the tower’s construction was stopped for almost 100 years. The Leaning Tower of Pisa wasn’t completed until 1372 meaning it took 199 years to build.
Even though it is still leaning today the Leaning Tower of Pisa is popular with tourists and is checked regularly by engineers to make sure it is structurally safe. That means if you visit the tower, you can climb to the top and see the bells. Because of how the tower leans, if you climb up the North staircase you have to climb up two less steps than if you climb up the South staircase as it’s a little taller on the South side.
In the 1990’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa had started to lean too far and people were worried that the tower would eventually fall down. Engineers were brought in to work on the foundation of the tower and were able to straighten it up a little bit and secure it so it was safe. It is still the Leaning Tower of Pisa just with a smaller lean so we can be sure it will be there for us to visit for a long time.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about the Leaning Tower of Pisa as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this landmark is, you can move on to learn about other famous places and statues like: Statue of Liberty and The Colosseum.
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