When you’re trying to come up with the image of a city crammed with soaring buildings, Hollywood would have you believe that New York City is the one place that comes to mind – remember all those sweeping shots of the NYC cityscape in everything from Gossip Girl and Sex and the City to Mad Men? But, the fact remains that it is not actually the world leader for skyscrapers – Hong Kong is!
According to the UK’s Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, skyscrapers are buildings that measure 150 metres or taller. Hong Kong, with a relatively small amount of valuable land area sandwiched between mountainous terrain and the sea, has always chosen to expand upwards, and now boasts more than 550 completed skyscrapers, making us the city with the most skyscrapers in the world.
The second place goes to our mainland Chinese neighbour Shenzhen, a mega-city that has more than 380 skyscrapers. With a skyline full of enormous buildings like the 115-storey Ping An Finance Center, there’s no doubt that the ‘Silicon Valley of China’ will be expanding its portfolio of architectural giants even further in the years to come.
New York comes in at number three, with the city’s iconic builds like the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, One World Trade Center, and the residential towers of Billionaire’s Row making up over 320 skyscrapers. The other cities rounding out the top 10 cities with the most skyscrapers are Dubai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Chicago, and Wuhan, respectively.
Of course, with new buildings being constructed every day – especially within fast-moving Asian cities – these rankings are bound to be quite fluid. Check back again next year to see who lands where, but one thing’s for sure: no other city is coming near our skyscraper count any time soon.
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