Discover the Tallest Building in Maryland (and Where It Ranks in the U.S.)

Baltimore’s Transamerica Tower is the tallest building in the state of Maryland. At 529 feet tall, it towers over others in Maryland’s largest city. It is 40 stories and was built in 1973. The skyscraper was built to be the headquarters of the United States Fidelity and Guarantee Company and was originally known as the USF&G Building. It is sometimes referred to by its address as well, 100 Light Street.

Since then, it has been the headquarters of multiple companies and businesses in Baltimore. Legg-Mason, Inc., an investment firm in Baltimore, occupied the building until 2009. After that, multiple companies opened offices in the building, including RBC Wealth Management, a Baltimore law firm, and others. It was renamed the Transamerica Tower after its largest tenant, the Transamerica Corporation, in 2011. The same company also has offices in San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid skyscraper.

Skyscrapers in Baltimore, Maryland

With a population of around 576,000 people, Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland. It has numerous skyscrapers, the oldest of which was completed in the late 1880s. The Equitable Building is a 10-story building that is dwarfed by modern-day skyscrapers. But at the time of its completion, this building was a staggering structure. It is the oldest building still currently in Courthouse Square. The 15-story Fidelity Building followed a few years later.

In 1904, a major fire broke out in the city and damaged many of its skyscrapers. Amazingly, the outer structures were still sound and only the interiors needed to be rebuilt. Many of the modern-day skyscrapers were constructed in the 1970s, 1990s, and within the last couple of decades. There are office buildings and businesses as well as residential buildings. There are more than 45 buildings that are over 220 feet tall in the city of Baltimore. Other cities in Maryland have some tall buildings but nowhere near as many or as tall as those in Baltimore.

What is the Tallest Building in the United States?

Compared to other towering skyscrapers, even the Transamerica Tower is just average. The tallest building in the United States is the One World Trade Center in New York City. Constructed in 2014 at the site of the former Twin Towers which fell in 2001 following a terrorist attack, One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet tall. Many of the tallest buildings in the country are in New York City. Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and many other major cities all have skyscrapers higher than the tallest building in Maryland.

While the Transamerica Tower might not rank within the top 50 tallest buildings in the U.S., it still has the distinction of being the tallest building between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to the North and Raleigh to the South in North Carolina.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © "Transamerica Tower, Baltimore, 2018" by Daniel Case is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. – License / Original