Ferris wheel
amusement ride
A Ferris wheel (also called a big wheel, giant wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsules, or pods) attached to the rim in such a way that as the wheel turns, they are kept upright, usually by gravity. Some of the largest modern Ferris wheels have cars mounted on the outside of the rim, with electric motors to independently rotate each car to keep it upright.
The original Ferris Wheel was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. as a landmark for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, although much smaller wooden wheels of a similar idea predate Ferris's wheel, dating perhaps to the 1500s. The generic term "Ferris wheel" is now used in American English for all such structures, which have become a very common type of amusement ride at amusement parks, state fairs, and other fairs or carnivals in the United States.
The tallest Ferris wheel is the 250-metre (820 ft) Ain Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which opened in October 2021.
Terminology and design
The term Ferris wheel comes from the designer of the best known early example, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., whose Ferris Wheel Company built a large amusement for the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.
The Ferris Wheel Company was formed in 1892 for the [construction and operation of] "wheels of the Ferris or other types for the purpose of observation or amusement", the source of the modern usage observation wheel for the type.
Design variations include single- (cantilevered) or twin-sided support for the wheel, and whether the cars or capsules are oriented upright by gravity or by electric motors. The most prevalent design uses twin-sided support and gravity-oriented capsules.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ferris wheel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.