Titanic was the largest ship afloat in 1912 but according to Paul Stott, senior lecturer at Newcastle University’s School of Marine Science and Technology, it quite small compared to ships like Costa Concordia (which sank off Italy two years ago). Some reports, for instance, say Costa Concordia is two times larger than Titanic. Stott says Titanic today would be equivalent to a mid-size ferry. His problem with trying to compare Titanic and Costa Concordia is that it is hard to have a sense of scale. Stott says a more meaningful way of understanding the size differences is to use famous buildings.

“Stating that the salvors are using brute force to move an object the size of a sky scraper, which many have seen and can therefore relate to directly, really gets across the message of how heroic the salvage operation is.”

Source: Titanic ‘Smaller Than People Think‘(11 Feb 2014,Belfast Telegraph)