Building extraction is one of the essential issues for 3D city modelling. In recent years, high-resolution satellite imagery has become widely available and it brings new methodology for urban mapping. In this paper, we have developed a semi-automatic algorithm to determine building heights from monoscopic high-resolution satellite data. The algorithm is based on the analysis of the projected shadow and actual shadow of a building. Once two roof comer points are measured manually, the algorithm detects (rectangular) roof boundary automatically. Then it estimates a building height automatically by projecting building shadow onto the image for a given building height, counting overlapping pixels between the projected shadow and actual shadow, and finding the height that maximizes the number of overlapping pixels. Once the height and roof boundary are available, the footprint and a 3D wireframe model of a building can be determined. The proposed algorithm is tested with IKONOS images over Deajeon city and the result is compared with the building height determined by stereo analysis. The accuracy of building height extraction is examined using standard error of estimate.