Landmark North America
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a giant green statue in New York. She holds a torch up high. She was a gift from France to the United States.
The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. France gave her to the United States as a sign of friendship. The sculptor Auguste Bartholdi shaped her copper skin, Gustave Eiffel designed the iron frame inside, and she was dedicated in 1886.
"Liberty Enlightening the World," proposed by Edouard de Laboulaye and sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi on an internal frame by Gustave Eiffel, is a hollow skin of thin copper over a metal framework. Dedicated in 1886 on a pedestal by Richard Morris Hunt, it is a World Heritage Site (1984).
Photo: Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty stands on a small island near New York City.
She is a very tall lady made of copper. She holds a torch in one hand. In the other hand she holds a tablet. Her crown has seven points, like rays of light.
The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, at the entrance to New York Harbor. Her full name is "Liberty Enlightening the World." She was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, to celebrate friendship between the two countries and the ideas of freedom and democracy.
She is made of thin sheets of copper over a strong metal frame. From her feet to the top of her torch she is 46 meters tall, and with her pedestal and base she reaches 93 meters.
The statue stands on Liberty Island (Bedloe's Island until 1956) at the entrance to New York Harbor. UNESCO describes her as a hollow colossus of thinly pounded copper sheets over a steel framework, designed by Bartholdi with the engineer Gustave Eiffel, and inscribed her in 1984 as a masterpiece of colossal statuary that brought art and engineering together.
The National Park Service gives 151 ft 1 in (46.05 m) from the top of the base to the torch and 305 ft 1 in (92.99 m) from the ground to the tip of the torch. She holds a tablet inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI, the date of the Declaration of Independence, and stands among a broken chain and shackle. UNESCO notes she soon became, and remains, a symbol of the people who migrated to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Where
- Liberty Island, New York Harbor, United States
- Dedicated
- October 28, 1886
- Statue, base to torch
- 151 ft 1 in (46.05 m)
- Ground to tip of torch
- 305 ft 1 in (92.99 m)
A gift from France
A man in France had an idea. He wanted to give America a present for its 100th birthday.
A sculptor named Bartholdi made a giant statue. People in France paid for the statue. People in America paid for the stone base.
In 1865, a French thinker named Edouard de Laboulaye suggested that France give the United States a statue for its 100th birthday in 1876. A young sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi, loved the idea and designed the statue.
The two countries shared the cost: France paid for the statue and the United States for the pedestal. Money ran short in America, until the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer asked his readers to give, and more than $100,000 came in. The statue was finished in Paris in 1884, taken apart, shipped across the ocean and put back together. She was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
Laboulaye, an authority on the U.S. Constitution and an abolitionist, proposed the gift in 1865; the National Park Service links his idea to the Union's victory and the abolition of slavery that year, and notes that for African Americans in 1886 the statue's promise of freedom was not yet a reality. Bartholdi joined the project in 1870 and, on a visit to the United States in 1871, found the site he wanted: Bedloe's Island.
The Franco-American Union, formed in 1875, raised about 400,000 francs by 1880; in the United States, the American Committee raised $125,000 between 1877 and 1884 before funds ran out, and Pulitzer's six-month campaign in the New York World brought in over $100,000. The finished statue was presented in Paris on July 4, 1884, shipped aboard the French navy ship Isère (arriving June 17, 1885) and dedicated on October 28, 1886, the day of New York's first ticker-tape parade, attended by over one million people. It became a National Monument in 1924 and passed to the National Park Service in 1933.
Who built it, and how
Workers in France hammered thin copper sheets into shape.
Gustave Eiffel planned a strong iron skeleton inside. In America, workers built a tall stone base. Then crews put the statue together on the island.
Bartholdi and his workmen first made models in wood and plaster. Then they shaped the statue's skin from copper sheets only as thick as two pennies put together. To hold it up, the engineer Gustave Eiffel, who later built the Eiffel Tower, designed an iron frame inside, a bit like a skeleton.
In America, the architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal, with concrete walls up to 20 feet thick covered in granite. In 1886, crews, most of whom were immigrants, rebuilt the statue piece by piece on the island, a difficult and dangerous job.
Bartholdi began construction in 1876; the torch-bearing hand went to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition that year and the head to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. When the original engineer, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, died in 1879, Bartholdi hired Eiffel, who in 1880 devised a 98 ft (29.87 m) inner iron framework to cope with the statue's height, weight, shape and the harbor winds. UNESCO calls this flexible, curtain-wall-like support of the skin a harbinger of modern engineering.
Assembly began near Parc Monceau in Paris in 1881. On Bedloe's Island, General Charles P. Stone, chief engineer, built a 15 ft deep foundation, and Hunt's pedestal used poured concrete walls up to 20 ft thick faced with granite, the largest mass of poured concrete of its time. In 1886 the contractor D. H. King's crews, most of them immigrants, reassembled the statue with great precision and speed. The NPS gives 176,000 lb of copper, 440,000 lb of framework and a 54,000,000 lb concrete foundation.
Torch, crown and tablet
Her torch is covered in gold, so it shines in the sun.
Her crown has 25 little windows. Her tablet shows the date of America's birthday. Broken chains lie at her feet. They stand for being free.
The torch held up in her right arm is covered in thin gold, called gold leaf, so it glitters by day and glows under lights at night. Her crown has seven rays and 25 windows, where visitors can look out. The tablet in her left hand shows July 4, 1776, the date of American independence, written in Roman numerals.
At her feet lie a broken chain and shackle, a sign of freedom, though you cannot see them from the ground. She faces southeast, toward ships coming into the harbor, and stands inside the walls of an old star-shaped fort.
The present torch, copper covered in 24-karat gold leaf, replaced the original in 1986; the original was moved to the Statue of Liberty Museum in 2018. The crown has 25 windows and seven rays; the tablet, 23 ft 7 in (7.19 m) long, reads JULY IV MDCCLXXVI. The NPS notes the chains and broken shackle at her feet cannot be seen from below.
The figure faces southeast, aligned with Fort Wood, the 11-point star fort on which the pedestal stands, and with the view from ships entering the harbor. Her right arm is 42 ft (12.80 m) long and her index finger 8 ft (2.44 m). In the wind, the NPS says, the statue can sway up to 3 in and the torch up to 6 in.
- Crown
- 25 windows and seven rays
- Length of hand
- 16 ft 5 in (5.00 m)
- Copper skin
- 3/32 inch, two pennies thick
- Wind sway
- statue up to 3 in, torch up to 6 in
Caring for Lady Liberty
Park rangers look after the statue today.
People ride a boat to the island. Some climb up inside to her crown and look out of the windows.
The statue is looked after by the National Park Service, and visitors reach the island by ferry. For her 100th birthday, she was carefully repaired from 1984 to 1986. Workers replaced rusted iron bars inside with stainless steel and made a new torch covered in gold.
Today, visitors can explore a museum about the statue, and some climb the stairs inside all the way up to the crown. Nearby Ellis Island is part of the same national monument.
The statue was designated a National Monument in 1924 and has been managed by the National Park Service since 1933; Ellis Island was added to the monument in 1965. Its most extensive restoration ran from 1984 to 1986, by the NPS with the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation: rusted iron armature bars were replaced with stainless steel, coatings removed from the inner copper skin, and a new gold-leafed torch made. UNESCO adds that the restoration corrected deformations caused by galvanic interaction between the metals.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the island and statue closed; the island reopened that December, the pedestal in 2004 and the crown on July 4, 2009. Since 2018 the original torch has been displayed in the Torch Gallery of the Statue of Liberty Museum on the island.
Amazing facts
-
Her copper skin is as thin as two pennies.
The statue's copper skin is only 3/32 of an inch thick, about as thick as two pennies put together.
The copper sheeting is 3/32 inch thick, which the National Park Service compares to two pennies placed together.
-
The statue's hand and torch went on show before the rest of her was built.
Her hand holding the torch was shown in Philadelphia in 1876 and then in New York, years before the statue was finished.
The torch-bearing hand was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and at Madison Square in New York until 1882.
-
The statue sways a little in the wind.
In strong wind, the statue can sway up to 3 inches, and her torch up to 6 inches.
The National Park Service gives wind sway of up to 3 inches for the statue and up to 6 inches for the torch.
-
New York had its first ticker-tape parade for the statue.
When the statue was dedicated in 1886, New York City held its very first ticker-tape parade.
The dedication on October 28, 1886 was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade, attended by over one million people, despite fog and rain.
Words to know
- sculptor
- an artist who makes statues and other shapes from stone, metal or clay
- copper
- a reddish-brown metal that slowly turns green outdoors
- pedestal
- the tall base that a statue stands on
- harbor
- a sheltered area of water where ships can stay safely
- immigrant
- a person who moves to live in a new country
- gold leaf
- gold beaten into sheets thinner than paper, used to cover things
Discovery challenge
-
Which country gave the statue as a gift?
Which country gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States?
Which country's citizens paid for the statue itself, while Americans funded the pedestal?
- Spain
- France
- Japan
Show the answer
France
France! It was a gift of friendship.
The people of France gave the statue to the people of the United States as a sign of friendship.
The Franco-American Union raised about 400,000 francs in France; American donors paid for Hunt's pedestal.
-
What does the statue hold up high?
What does the statue hold up in her right hand?
What is raised in the statue's right hand, now covered in 24-karat gold leaf?
- An umbrella
- A torch
- A flag
Show the answer
A torch
A torch! It shines in the sun.
She holds a torch, covered in thin gold so it glitters by day and glows under lights at night.
The torch, replaced in 1986, is copper covered in 24-karat gold leaf; the original is in the Statue of Liberty Museum.
-
Who planned the iron skeleton inside the statue?
Which engineer, later famous for a tower in Paris, designed the statue's iron frame?
Which engineer devised the statue's 29.87 m inner iron framework in 1880?
- Gustave Eiffel
- Joseph Pulitzer
- Emma Lazarus
Show the answer
Gustave Eiffel
Gustave Eiffel planned the iron skeleton.
Gustave Eiffel, who later built the Eiffel Tower, designed the iron frame that holds up the copper skin.
Eiffel replaced the late Viollet-le-Duc in 1879 and designed the framework to cope with height, weight, shape and wind.
-
What is the statue's skin made of?
What metal is the statue's skin made of?
Which metal forms the statue's thin outer skin?
- Copper
- Gold
- Plastic
Show the answer
Copper
Copper! It has turned green over time.
The skin is thin sheets of copper, about as thick as two pennies.
The skin is 3/32-inch copper sheeting, 176,000 lb in all, on Eiffel's iron framework; its rusted iron armature bars were replaced with stainless steel in the 1980s.
-
Who put the statue together on the island?
Who did the dangerous job of putting the statue together on the island in 1886?
According to the National Park Service, who made up most of the crews that reassembled the statue?
- Robots
- Crews of workers, most of them immigrants
- Nobody: it was built in one piece
Show the answer
Crews of workers, most of them immigrants
Crews of workers put her together, piece by piece.
Crews of workers, most of whom were immigrants, rebuilt the statue on the island with great care.
D. H. King's crews, mostly immigrants, reassembled the statue with great precision and speed in 1886.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France and who designed and built it.
- Describe how a thin copper skin is held up by an iron frame inside.
- Name the statue's main features (torch, crown, tablet, broken chain) and what they show.
- Discuss why the statue became a symbol for immigrants and what liberty means to different people.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- France and the United States shared the cost of the statue. Why might two countries want to build something together?
- The statue's broken chain stands for freedom. What does freedom mean to you?
- Many immigrants saw the statue when they arrived in New York. How do you think they felt?
Try at home or in class
- Wrap aluminum foil around a frame of pipe cleaners to make a mini statue, and see how a thin skin needs a skeleton inside.
- Leave a copper coin or a piece of copper wire in a little vinegar and salt on a paper towel for a day or two and watch it start to turn green.
Key vocabulary: sculptor, copper, pedestal, harbor, immigrant, gold leaf
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- UNESCO World Heritage List , UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Linked as a reference; site facts come from Wikidata)
- Statue Statistics , National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument
- Liberty Island Chronology , National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument
- The Statue of Liberty and Abolition , National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument
- Statue of Liberty , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.