Country · China

China: a vertical continent

In three decades, China has turned from a country of low-rise construction into a laboratory of supertall building. Six of the ten tallest buildings in Asia stand here, and so does the tower with the most pronounced façade twist among skyscrapers above 600 meters.

632m
Shanghai Tower · national record
2800+
Skyscrapers above 150 m
6/10
Of Asia's tallest buildings
Context

No country has ever built this much, this fast.

Between 2000 and 2024, China produced more buildings above 200 meters than the entire history of world architecture delivered before 1990. These are not just numbers — they signal a new engineering culture in which the skyscraper stopped being the symbol of a single city and became the calling card of an entire region.

02Cities that reach upward.

Seven Chinese megacities hold around 1,300 buildings above 150 meters. Hover a card to highlight its region on the map below.

Special administrative region
№ 01 Coast · Pearl River Delta
Hong Kong Hong Kong
360+
buildings > 150 m
484m
ICC · record
City profile
Tech hub of mainland China
№ 02 Coast · Guangdong Province
Shenzhen Shenzhen
300+
buildings > 150 m
599m
Ping An · record
City profile
Financial capital of Asia
№ 03 Coast · Yangtze Delta
Shanghai Shanghai
250+
buildings > 150 m
632m
Shanghai Tower · record
City profile
River megacity
№ 04 Coast · Guangdong Province
Guangzhou Guangzhou
160+
buildings > 150 m
530m
CTF · record
City profile
Capital of the PRC
№ 05 North · Municipal district
Beijing Beijing
100+
buildings > 150 m
528m
China Zun · record
City profile
Mountain megacity
№ 06 Center · Southwest
Chongqing Chongqing
85+
buildings > 150 m
350m
Raffles T4N · record
City profile
Northern port
№ 07 North · Bohai coast
Tianjin Tianjin
80+
buildings > 150 m
530m
CTF Tianjin · record
City profile

03The tower that twists.

Shanghai Tower is the tallest skyscraper in China and the second-tallest building in the world after Burj Khalifa.

№ 01 · Shanghai Tower

632 meters became the answer to a problem the engineers themselves created.

Shanghai, Pudong District

The project was developed by the American firm Gensler in collaboration with the Shanghai-based ECADI institute. In the early stages, Marshall Strabala served as lead designer, with Tong Ming's team later refining the scheme. The structural calculations made one thing clear: a straight 128-story tower under Shanghai's typhoon winds would face unacceptable lateral loads. The solution was a 120° twist of the façade from base to crown — reducing wind pressure by roughly 24% and saving a substantial amount of structural steel. Today it is the tallest twisted tower in the world and the second-tallest building on the planet after Burj Khalifa.

632m
Height
128
Floors
2015
Completed
9
Cylinders at the base
120°
Façade twist
−24%
Wind load

Architect: Gensler (USA) · ECADI · Marshall Strabala, Tong Ming

Other towers
№ 02

Ping An Finance Centre

Shenzhen · Futian District

The tower of insurance company Ping An holds the height record among "office" buildings: about 17,000 people work inside, and the façade consists of 1,700 unique glass panels — no two are alike.

599m
Completed · 2017
№ 03

Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre

Guangzhou · Pearl River waterfront

The tower is designed so that three passageways are "cut out" at its base — preserving the pedestrian route along the river while giving the structure eight load points instead of one. Inside run some of the fastest passenger elevators in the world — Hitachi lifts reaching up to 21 m/s.

530m
Completed · 2016
№ 04

Jin Mao Tower

Shanghai · Pudong, historic axis

Mainland China's first "thousand-footer" (more than 88 floors). Its silhouette echoes a pagoda — each new tier steps inward, letting the building gently "dissolve" into the sky. In 1999 it was the tallest building in mainland China.

421m
Completed · 1999
№ 05

Shanghai World Financial Center

Shanghai · Pudong, business triangle

The building is instantly recognizable by its trapezoidal aperture at the 100th floor — architects KPF cut it not for the design but to reduce wind loading. The original scheme featured a circular window — locals in Shanghai nicknamed it the "bottle opener."

492m
Completed · 2008

04Timeline of heights.

Five milestones after which China became an architectural superpower.

1999
Shanghai
Jin Mao Tower

421 m. Mainland China's first supertall tower, styled after the classical pagoda.

2008
Shanghai
SWFC

492 m. A building with a "viewing aperture" — the hole in the façade cuts wind load by 25%.

2015
Shenzhen
Ping An

599 m. A "megastructure" tower of eight mega-columns — a new type of skyscraper.

2015
Shanghai
Shanghai Tower

632 m. The tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world. A twisted profile — a first.

2018
Beijing
China Zun

528 m. The tallest skyscraper in the capital, its profile echoes an ancient zun vessel.

05Cities that reach upward.

Seven Chinese megacities hold around 1,300 buildings above 150 meters — more than any other country — and they are spread across the map in a way most people don't expect.

For a long time Hong Kong held the top spot, but over the past fifteen years Shenzhen and Shanghai have moved to the front. Each of these cities shapes its own skyline character — from Hong Kong's Gothic spires to Shenzhen's glass terraces.

The catalog cities are listed above. Hover any region on the map below to see which of these megacities belong to the coastal belt, the northern cluster, or the central region. Detailed profiles for each city will be added in upcoming versions.

Jump to the region map

06What Chinese engineers do differently.

Copying America is dull — over twenty years Chinese designers have built their own toolkit, and much of it is now studied at MIT and the University of Tokyo.

  1. 01

    120° façade twist

    Shanghai Tower reduces wind load with pure geometry — each floor is rotated relative to the one below. That alone saved around $380 million in structural steel.

  2. 02

    Mega-columns instead of a core

    Ping An Finance Centre and Shanghai Tower abandoned the classic central shear core. Eight mega-columns around the perimeter deliver more usable floor area on every level.

  3. 03

    Dampers weighing up to 1,000 t

    Shanghai Tower carries the world's heaviest tuned mass damper — a 1,000-ton pendulum on the 125th floor that cancels sway during typhoons and earthquakes.

  4. 04

    Modular assembly

    Broad Group in Changsha was the first to build a skyscraper from prefabricated modules: Mini Sky City added 57 floors — about 200 meters — in 19 working days.

  5. 05

    76 km/h elevators

    CTF Finance Centre in Guangzhou runs Hitachi elevators at up to 21 m/s — among the fastest passenger lifts in the world. The ride from the first to the 111th floor takes under 50 seconds.

6/10
Tallest buildings in Asia

Six of the ten tallest buildings in Asia were built in China — the rest are split between the UAE, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Taiwan.

19days
Mini Sky City

In Changsha, a 57-story modular building rose in just 19 days of construction.

1000t
Tuned mass damper

The world's heaviest sway-control system sits on the 125th floor of Shanghai Tower.

$2bn
Ping An cost

Includes 1,700 unique glass panels and 33 ultra-fast elevators.

07Towers still under construction.

Three projects that could surpass Ping An within the next five years — if they make it across the finish line.

Wuhan Greenland Center

Wuhan · Hankou District

It was meant to be the world's fourth tower above 600 m. After aviation regulations tightened in 2017, the project was scaled down to 475 m. Work has now resumed with a refreshed façade concept.

475m design
Construction

Tianjin 597

Tianjin · Binhai District

The "Triple Six" tower — 597 meters and 134 floors. Its silhouette is described as a "folded fan": the façade is built from panels tilted at different angles, with no two alike on the same floor. Construction has been intermittent since the project was announced.

597m
Design phase

Chengdu Tianfu New Area Tower

Chengdu · Tianfu District

A trio of towers in Chengdu's new tech zone. The main tower is announced at around 488 m, with the upper floors planned as open planted terraces accessible to residents of the district.

~488m
Ready to start

08Two handwritings, one country.

Chinese supertall architecture carries two opposing methods at once: the "architectural canon" and "neo-futurism."

Era · 1990s — 2010s

Architectural canon: glass, pylon, formalism

The first generation of towers quoted international modernism — pylons, prominent cores, dark-glass façades. They competed with each other only on height, and the silhouette came second. The main task was to "match" the status of a global financial center.

  • Straight geometry
  • Central core
  • Glass and steel
  • Symmetric façade
  • Business district
Era · 2010s — today

Neo-futurism: form seeks function

Since Shanghai Tower, Chinese architects began "sculpting" geometry around the brief. Buildings stopped being "boxes with a spire": every new tower solves a concrete problem — wind, view, seismic performance, evacuation. Hence the spirals, apertures, stepped sections.

  • Twisted façade
  • Mega-columns
  • Apertures in silhouette
  • Mixed-use programs
  • Sky-bridges

09Where the towers stand.

Hover a region or pick a card on the right — the link works in both directions.

Borderlands 4% North 11% Center 7% East 78%
78% of towers

Coastal belt

Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou. The Pearl River and Yangtze deltas — the country's main high-rise zone.

11% of towers

North · Beijing — Tianjin

The capital cluster. China Zun, CITIC Tower, the new Daxing airport and the Binhai seaport belong to one Jing-Jin-Ji megaregion.

7% of towers

Center and west

Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Xi'an. Chongqing is one of the fastest-growing megacities on the planet.

4% of towers

Border zones

The Northeast (Harbin, Dalian) and Tibet. High-rise development rarely exceeds 200 m.

Vertical map of the world: other countries.

Compare the Chinese model with Japan's seismic engineering, America's megastructures, and the Middle East's height records. Each country is its own engineering school.

All countries Back to top
SkyscrapersInfo · China
Last updated · March 2025