How the world is competing with skyscrapers

The first skyscraper was the 10-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, which was constructed in 1885. At the time, it represented a revolution and marked the start of the skyscraper era. The building had a steel inner skeleton, which allowed the walls to be thinner and the entire structure to be higher than ever. It stood until 1931, when it was torn down to make way for the Bank of America, which still stands today.

Although skyscrapers originated in the United States, humanity has ascended much higher. The tallest building in the world at present is Burj Khalifa, which is situated in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At 2717 feet tall, it is taller than two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of one another. To put this in perspective, over 7500 skyscrapers make up the entire continent of Asia.

Asia has the largest population in the world and an economic boom, so building high-rise structures is a perfect solution to fit as many people as possible in its cities. However, close to China is India, which has nearly the same population but only 200 skyscrapers, most of which are in Mumbai. Why doesn't India build skyscrapers if it's such a great way to accommodate people? It turns out that the country strictly regulates heights.

There are just 250 skyscrapers in Europe, and half of them are concentrated in just three towns. New York alone has more skyscrapers than all of Europe combined.

When the United States was being built, many European cities had already been around for dozens of centuries, so there isn't much more room for construction and no one wants to knock down the Colossus of Rhodes. This is why Europe has a completely different reason to oppose tall buildings. The history of skyscrapers dates back to just a little over a century ago to the 20th century USA. The USA is a relatively young country, and the cities are still being built from scratch.

Europe continues to detest contemporary construction Building a luxury glass skyscraper in Europe is difficult due to the widespread adoption of zoning laws, even in major financial centers like London. Due to the need for commercial space, such cities as Frankfurt or Istanbul have multiple skyscrapers outside of their historic areas, constituting separate skyscraper districts. Rome, the capital of Italy and one of the oldest towns in the world, declared that it would never allow skyscrapers to be built there.

Have you also noticed that the majority of skyscrapers are made of glass? It turns out that this choice is not at all random, and there are several reasons to favor glass in their construction. The first is that glass can be formed into any shape, so skyscrapers can no longer be the plain, uninteresting vertical towers they once were but can instead have all of the elaborate designs we see around the world.

The second reason is that glass is a very thin material, meaning that walls are thinner and floors are bigger, creating more interior space than in pre-home insurance building times. Glass is also transparent, which makes it cost-effective to use less electricity inside the building. Further, glass is temperature and weather resistant. Finally, it just looks posh, fancy, and modern, so theoretically skyscrapers can be as tall as possible.

Urban space can accommodate more people and use less energy, but in reality, everything is a little less efficient. For example, skyscrapers take up more land than lower buildings because they have more space between them. Additionally, about 40% of a skyscraper's floor space is taken up by elevator shafts and emergency exits, so each additional floor adds less floor space than the one before.

So, Turkey comes in at number 14 with 67 skyscrapers, Panama comes in at number 15 with 66, Singapore comes in at number 13 with 95, and India comes in at number 15 with 112 skyscrapers—a significant increase considering many of those were constructed recently.

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There are 122 buildings in the Philippines.

In the top 10, Thailand is represented by 125 skyscrapers.

Canada has 126, slightly more than it.

Indonesia comes in eighth place with 129.

Australia, which has 141 of them, comes in seventh.

Leveling up, Malaysia is mentioned at 266.

It is hardly surprising that Japan begins the top five at number four, only five points behind it.

South Korea, another Asian nation, is home to 276 skyscrapers.

With 314 buildings, the United Arab Emirates enters the top three.

If you've been paying attention today, you'll know that China and the United States are the two nations with the most skyscrapers, with 2976, and 859 each. The United States moved up from third to second place with 859 skyscrapers, but China took first place with 2976.

The top 15 nations include nine Asian nations, three American nations, one Middle Eastern nation, one European nation, and one Australian nation.