page_title: List of pipe organs
section_title: Civic and concert hall organs
hierarchical_section_title: List of pipe organs / The largest pipe organs in the world / Civic and concert hall organs
caption_attribution_description: English: A visiting organist in Taiwan's National Concert Hall in Taipei. Photo: Alton Thompson
context_page_description: This is a list and brief description of notable pipe organs in the world, with links to corresponding articles about them.
context_section_description: The largest pipe organ ever built, based on number of pipes, is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company between 1929 and 1932. The organ contains seven manuals, 449 ranks, 337 registers, and 33,114 pipes. It weighs approximately 150 tons.  Most of the organ has not functioned since 1944; a partial restoration in 1998 was largely reversed by construction damage during a renovation of the Boardwalk Hall shortly afterwards. Parts of the organ are again being restored to playing order in a $16M restoration effort that is expected to be completed by 2023. The Historic Organ Restoration Committee reports that as of 2018, 95% of the Ballroom Organ is operational, and 50% of the Main Auditorium organ is operational. Restoration work is ongoing and proceeding. This project has been completed to the extent that public concerts have resumed.
  It contains the world's largest Diaphone, the 64′ Diaphone-Dulzian in the Pedal Right Division, which is also one of only two full-length 64′ stops in the world.
  The Grand Ophicleide (organ stop) in the Pedal Right Division, speaking on 100" wind pressure, is also recognised by The Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest organ stop in the world. It is described as having "a pure trumpet note of ear-splitting volume, more than six times the volume of the loudest locomotive whistle". In fact, the Grand Ophicleide produces 130 dB at 1 meter distance.
  The largest pipe organ in the world, based on number of ranks and physical mass weight, is the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ at Philadelphia's John Wanamaker department store (now operated by Macy's). It ranks second in the world based on number of pipes. It is the largest fully operational musical instrument in the world, with six manuals, 464 ranks, 401 registers, and 28,750 pipes; it weighs 287 tons. This concert organ was initially constructed by the Los Angeles Art Organ Co. for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis; it was designed by George Ashdown Audsley. The organ was purchased by John Wanamaker for his palatial Philadelphia store; disassembled, the organ filled 13 rail cars. Uniquely, the Wanamaker Organ had from the beginning full-time organ fabricators and technicians, a true "organ shop," building it to luxurious standards of quality. They expanded the organ in 1914–1917 and again in 1924-1930. It is played twice a day, six days a week, and there are many recordings of this organ.
  Its 88-rank String Organ is the largest division in any pipe organ in the largest single organ chamber.
  Its Pedal Organ of 75 ranks (supplemented by additional borrowed ranks) is the largest Pedal department of any instrument, possessing unsurpassed richness of tone with the capacity for subtle bass gradation in volume and complete separateness of musical line from the manual stops.
  At 71 ranks, its Swell Division is the largest Swell ever built.
  It is the largest organ built to a straight design with minimal resorting to unification.
  It has more expression pedals (10) than any other pipe organ, and 8 separately expressive pipe divisions.
  Despite its formidable size and power, its strength and hallmark is in musical subtlety and nuance.
  It is also recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records.
  The largest concert hall organ in the Western hemisphere, and world's 6th (2nd and 7th respectively, if the Midmer-Losh in Boardwalk Hall is included) is the 250 rank, 5 manual, and 15,633 pipes instrument located in the Auditorio Nacional (National Auditorium) in México City, México.
  The largest concert hall organ in the U.S. (excluding the Midmer-Losh in Boardwalk Hall, for not being fully operational) is the Newberry Memorial Organ, a 197-rank E. M. Skinner at Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT. With the exception of México's Auditorio Nacional and the Sydney Opera House organ, it is the largest concert hall organ in the world.
  The Grand Organ in the Sydney Town Hall's Centenary Hall, Australia was for many years the largest in the world, and was the largest built in the nineteenth century. 
caption: The National Theater and Concert Hall organ in Taiwan
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