Mexico City's Zócalo Catrina, nearly 110 feet tall, is certified as the world's tallest
Popular Science gives the scale (six stacked giraffes) and a quick, balanced take on the holiday's disputed origins.
A sculpture of La Catrina, the elegant skeleton of Day of the Dead imagery, standing in Mexico City's main square is now the Guinness World Records holder as the tallest Catrina monument, Popular Science reports. At nearly 110 feet, roughly 11 stories, the steel-and-fiberglass figure tops the 92.3-foot Catrina built in Puerto Vallarta in 2023.
About 140 people assembled it. Her purple dress is more than 88 feet long, and the ofrenda (memorial altar) around her is surrounded by an estimated 70,000 marigold plants grown in the Xochimilco borough. Day of the Dead is observed on Nov. 1 and 2.
-
La Calavera Catrina
After exploring World’s tallest Day of the Dead sculpture erected in Mexico City | Popular Science, to see where the figure comes from, read La Calavera Catrina.
La Catrina began as a zinc etching by Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada; its first certain publication was in a 1913 satiric broadside.
Wikipedia · Wade · 5 min
0