Hong Kong has become the world’s most vertical city

Next month, on September 3, the world will celebrate Skyscraper Day when Hong Kong is expected to be crowned, again, as the city having the most skyscrapers. According to the Chicago-based Council on Vertical Urbanization, Hong Kong has 596 skyscrapers over 150 meters in height.

The city has been forced to build vertically due to its small land area and dense population and its skyline is among the most renowned in the world thanks to its robust financial sector, international trade connections, and creative urban planning.

Following up is Shenzhen with 444 skyscrapers and New York third with 317. The tallest building in the world is the Buri Khalifa in Dubai reach 828 meters and has 163 floors for hotels, residence, offices, observation decks and communication systems.

The council adds that Skyscraper Day is the ideal time to examine which cities have the most skyscrapers and how they represent advancements in economy and design.

Also, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has weighed in noting that when it comes to soaring skylines and architectural marvels, no country has embraced the vertical revolution quite like China. Hong Kong, along with Shenzhen, and Guangzhou (5th position) are part of a burgeoning megacity known as the Greater Bay Area, which is home to over 1,500 skyscrapers. This is even more impressive when considering that Shenzhen, which now boasts a population of 17 million people, was just a small fishing village until the 1970s.

Looking at this data from another perspective, China actually has more skyscrapers than the rest of the world combined. China has 12 cities, 2777 skyscrapers and 72 supertalls (300-599 meters tall) in the top 20, compared to the rest of the world with 13 cities, 2350 skyscrapers and 67 supertalls.

China’s prominence in the world of skyscrapers—with three cities in the top five globally—is likely to remain unchallenged, especially with the expected dominance of high risers in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis development, slated for completion in 2036.

In Hong Kong, the tallest building is the 484-meter-tall International Commerce Center which has 108 floors for the Ritz Carlton hotel, offices and retail outlets. It is also the 14th tallest building in the world.

This is followed by Two International Finance Center reaching 415 meters and home to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority which is housed from the 77th to 88th floors of the building. And third on the list is Central Plaza in Wanchai which is 374 meters tall with 78 floors of office space. On the 75th floor is a church – iSEE Church, formerly known as the Sky City Church – which is the tallest church in the world.

But tall buildings bring their own problems, especially with urban planning. In this regard, Hong Kong has long addressed the problem of the "Wall Effect" high risers present and instead has transformed its vast skyline into a global leader in sustainable construction.

The Hong Kong Planning Department has introduced strict Urban Design Guidelines and Sustainable Building Standards to break up the long rows of uniform high-rises. Developers are required to leave wide gaps, known as "breezeways," between tall buildings so that these air corridors enable natural sea breezes to flow through, cooling the streets and dispersing vehicle exhaust.
Also, the collaborative effort between the government and the construction industry has established Hong Kong as an internationally recognized hub for green high-rises. New buildings, for example, are required to allocate between 20 and 30 per cent of their site to green spaces, leading to high-rise developments featuring lush sky gardens, green roofs, and vertical planting walls that help absorb heat.

A classic example of this is The Henderson in Hong Kong’s busy central business district, which ranks it among Asia’s greenest skyscrapers, having achieved a top-tier Platinum certification for its smart, zero-carbon cooling systems and resilient layouts.

The certification process was conferred by the LEED global rankings of sustainable and environmental friendly buildings which placed Hong Kong sixth worldwide (and fourth in Asia) for meeting its strict criteria.

The verticalization of Hong Kong is necessary because of severe shortage of land. About 43 per cent of the total land area falls within the protected areas such as country parks, marine parks, wetland, sites of special scientific interest, and water gathering grounds. These areas are either statutorily protected or highly restricted from development. Development can only go up. But this has also bought a premium on land supply and price.

All land in Hong Kong is owned by the government, except where St John’s Cathedral stands, which was granted a freehold in perpetuity to the Church of England in 1847. The government leases and grants land for ownership for long periods of time, generally about 50 years or more. Land is released for development in a timely manner depending on demand generally through auctions. So for the current quarter, only one piece of land for residential use will be offered for sale in Kowloon to provide for some 250 high-rise flats.

The measured land release comes as Hong Kong’s residential market shows signs of recovery after years of downturn and when the government has lowered its land premium revenue target for the 2026-27 financial year to about HK$18 billion (US$2.3 billion).

For the current quarter, supply would also include more than 3,000 units from the first Northern Metropolis large-scale land disposal project in Hung Shui Kiu. The government aims to award the tender during the next week or so.

The Hung Shui Kiu pilot site marked the first land sale under the government’s new large-scale land disposal model for the Northern Metropolis.

Again, all of the once fertile agricultural and fish pond land in the Northern Metropolis will be transformed into a sea of high rise futuristic buildings to keep Hong Kong at the top of the skyscraper ratings for many years to come.

Mark Pinkstone

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

The idea that mainland nurses are being hired in Hong Kong to replace locally trained nurses is totally false and planted in the media as a cheap publicity stunt by the champion of the nurses.

The preposterous suggestion first surfaced on a September 17 Commercial Radio talk show when a disciplined services psychiatric nurse said there was an “unwritten rule” that the Hospital Authority reserved some recruitment spots for mainland Chinese nurses. He added that his daughter, who wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps, was unable to find a job after graduating.

The 30,000-strong Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff immediately waded in by issuing five “demands”, including a call to prioritize the hiring of local graduates. They should have done their homework. But, in reality the five so-call “demands”, as reported by local media, were actually the association’s aims and objectives.

The Association simply urged the authorities to prioritize employment for fresh local nursing graduates amid reports of some graduates struggling to secure public hospital positions and suggested slowing down or carefully calibrating the intake of non-locally trained nurses to match actual local recruitment realities.

The Association’s chairman, Tse Kin-keung, said he was unsure how authorities did the maths, but that the association was aware of more fresh graduates failing to find a job this year. He said introducing non-locally trained nurses should take into account local recruitment. He suggested the hiring of non-locally trained nurses should be slowed down.

The Hospital Authority (HA), armed with a treasure trove of facts and figures, strongly rebutted the claim saying that less than 0.5 per cent of all nurses in Hong Kong were not locally trained.

Some 99.8 percent of nurses in public hospitals were locally trained. This, said a government spokesman, reflected that locally trained nurses remain the backbone of the public healthcare system.

The government is concerned that the suggestion that the HA has an “unwritten rule” to hire non-local (mainland) nurses over locals could have an adverse impact on its recruitment drive to fill vacancies within the HA.

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said, "I don't want recent comments about 'graduation and then unemployment' to dampen the interest of our younger generation in joining the nursing profession. Nurse training takes time; it’s not something you can do overnight. If these false statements affect recruitment next year or in the future, we will bear the consequences. This isn’t about an isolated case, such as someone who couldn’t find work because he applied to the Hospital Authority after graduation, chose to take a year-long trip, returned later, and then claimed he couldn’t find work. I think it’s also irresponsible to generalise from a single, isolated case to the broader situation that all nurses can’t find jobs. This will affect the profession’s development and, ultimately, the Hong Kong healthcare system and the public will suffer.”

There are currently about 50 non-locally trained registered nurses (RN) serving in the HA, accounting for less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of nurses in the HA. In other words, about 99.8 per cent of RNs working in the HA are locally trained.

With an ageing population and the continuous growth in demand for healthcare services, the demand for nursing services in Hong Kong remains keen. There are still some 3 200 nurse vacancies in the HA to date, and recruitment is ongoing. This reflects that there remains a genuine demand for nursing manpower in the public healthcare system.

The HA’s load of statistics indicate there were about 4 000 prospective nursing graduates in 2025, of which about 3 500 became Registered Nurses (RNs) or Enrolled Nurses (ENs). Also last year, about 2 500 persons applied for RN and EN posts in the HA, representing about 60 per cent of the total number of prospective graduates of that year.

The figures show that not all graduates chose to join the public healthcare system, with some opting to pursue careers in various sectors such as private healthcare institutions, elderly and rehabilitation services, community nursing organisations, as well as insurance and health management.