The Eiffel Tower has been declared the most valuable monument in Europe – worth 435 billion euros to the French economy, a new study claims.

The venerable Paris landmark was estimated to be worth six times its nearest rival, the Colloseum in Rome, valued at 91 billion euros.

The study by Italy’s Monza and Brianza Chamber of Commerce based its findings on a monument’s “image, brand and visibility”, calculated by cross-referencing 10 different parameters from various analysts and statistics bodies.

Criteria included a “tourist index”, which took into account “the economic value of the location, the fame of the monument, the flux of visitors to the territory and monument” and an “economic attractiveness index”, comprising factors such as the number of jobs it created and its export value.

The huge value of the “Iron Lady” – as the 1,050ft tall edifice is affectionately known, amounts to almost a fifth of France’s entire annual gross domestic product.

Built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the World Trade Fair, the Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid for tourist attraction in the world which last year saw 7.1million people climb to one of its three viewing platforms.

200 million visitors have now visited the landmark since it opened and the tower is still the tenth tallest lattice style building on the planet.

Source: telegraph.co.uk