The Sri Lankan Christmas tree is claimed to be the world’s tallest artificial Christmas tree.[3][4][5] It is located on the Galle Face Green in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The tree is 238 feet (73 m) tall and opened on 25 December 2016 during Christmas eve night.
The cone-shaped tree is steel-and-wire frame made from scrap metals and woods and covered by plastic nets. It decorated with approximately one million natural pine cones painted gold, green, red and silver colors. It has 600,000 LED bulbs which illuminate the tree at night. On the top of tree there is a 20 feet (6.1 m) tall Christmas star with bulbs, weighing about 60 kg (130 lb). The tree cost Rs 12 million (about US$ 80,000). The tree was constructed by 150 employees of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Ports and Shipping with support from other parties.
Construction work began in August 2016 but was abandoned in first week of December after Catholic Church criticised it as "waste of money", and added "Construction work should be abandoned. Christmas is an occasion for sharing funds with the needy, not to waste money on lavishness... The market economy is using religion as a tool for selling Christmas." Later, work on the tree recommenced after a meeting with Catholic Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo.[6][7] Originally the tree was planned to be 100 metres (330 ft) tall but the height had to be reduced to 73 metres (240 ft) due to the delays in construction. A 20 feet (6.1 m) Santa Claus with a sled is placed near the tree.[8]
It is believed that the tree broke the previous record of the world's tallest artificial Christmas tree, which was 56 metres (184 ft) tall and constructed in Guangzhou, China in 2015 by GZ ThinkBig Culture Communication Co. Ltd
