Hong Kong skyline

If you're not from such a huge city yourself, your strongest impression might be of the Hong Kong skyline with all of its enormously tall buildings! Hong Kong has always been extremely crowded, with the Mong Kok district believed to be the most densely populated area on the planet.

Even though there have been massive reclamations of land from the sea, there still just isn't enough space to find room for all these people, so over the years the city continued to expand upwards, going higher and higher. This has made it home to some of the tallest building in the world, and new record-breaking skyscrapers are still being constructed year after year.

Some common places for appreciating the Hong Kong skyline are Victoria Peak, onboard a Star Ferry and in Tsim Sha Tsui. Particularly, you shouldn't miss seeing the skyscrapers break out into a light show during the nightly Symphony of Lights!

But it's also very cool to look at them up close. In most cases you can even walk inside as the bottom floors are usually shopping malls. The tallest ones are typically in the Central district, but basically all of Hong Kong consists of highrises. Here are some of the most striking constructions:

The International Commerce Centre, ICC, has just been finished and is now the city's highest building with its 484 metres (1,588 ft). But what makes it really eye-catching is that it is built on the Kowloon side, across the harbour from the old champions, making it tower way above anything in the vicinity.

The lower portion houses the Elements shopping mall and the new MTR stop "Kowloon", while the luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel resides at the top. But what's most exciting about it is that they have built an observation deck called the sky100. The building is so tall that the observation deck is of similar altitude to the outlock point atop the tower at Victoria Peak! But this is in the middle of the city, which makes the view even better.

2 International Finance Centre, IFC, the second tallest building in Hong Kong. These 407 metres (1,335 ft) of glass and steel are located right on the waterfront and play host to the successful IFC shopping mall.

The third tallest building is the office-heavy Central Plaza in Wanchai.

Although it has lately been dwarfed by the city's newer titans, the Bank of China Tower remains one of Hong Kong's most iconic buildings.

It was designed by world-famous architect I.M. Pei and completed in 1990 as the then tallest building outside of America at 305 metres (1,001 ft).

It is now the fourth tallest building in the city but the unique design still makes it stand out like no other.

Other buildings which stand out because of their design, even though they are not among the highest rooftops, include the Lippo Centre and Jardine House.

The rest of the highest buildings top ten is filled out by The Center, Nina Tower, One Island East, Cheung Kong Center and finally the North and South Tower of the Cullinan.

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