Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2023

CTBUH report details a record-breaking year.

submitted by CTBUH

The year 2023 was a record-breaking one for tall building completions, with 177 buildings of 200 m or greater in height completing. This figure is up 14.2% from 2022, which had 155 such completions. Globally, the world has amassed a total of 2,268 200-m-plus buildings and 232 supertall (300 m and taller) buildings through 2023. For perspective, the first 100 of these supertall buildings were completed by 2015, and the other 132 have been built in the seven years since. Additionally, the first 1,000 buildings of 200 m and greater in height were completed by 2015, a figure that has now more than doubled.

Completions Timeline

The tallest building to complete in 2023 was Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur at 678.9 m. This is the fourth time that Kuala Lumpur has completed the tallest building of the year since 1990, with its last record-holding building being Menara TM at 310 m, completed in 2001. Kuala Lumpur now has 62 buildings of 200 m or greater in height since its first, Menara Maybank, completed in 1988.

The record 177 completions represent a full 8.6% jump from the previous record of 163 completions set in 2018. 2023 was the 10th year in a row that the world has completed 100-plus buildings of at least 200 m in height. 

Key Worldwide Market Snapshots 

Country Completions, 2023

With 161 completed buildings of 200 m or greater in height, Shenzhen, China, is now home to one out of every 14 such buildings in the world. 

City Records

Eighteen cities got a new tallest building, as shown on the left. The number of cities completing a 200-m-plus building (56) was down from 2022’s 58 different cities, a decrease of 3.4% from 2022, and from a peak of 68 cities in 2017.

There were also exciting new starts of a number of record-breaking or notable 200-m-plus buildings in 2023. In Dubai, the 85-story Safa Two de GRISOGONO began construction on the final plots of the Aykon City project. In Brazil, São Paulo’s Alto das Nações Torre 2 began construction with a targeted completion of 2025. In Nashville, 1000 Church Street, the city’s first 200-m-plus building (ELEVATOR WORLD, December 2021), began construction late in the year.

Impact on the World’s 100 Tallest 

World’s 100 Tallest by Region

Asia (excluding the Middle East) continues to host the most buildings among the 100 tallest, with 63 buildings qualifying for that description at the end of 2023. The Middle East and North America are close behind, having 18 and 14 buildings, respectively. Europe is home to five of the 100 tallest, and Oceania, Africa and South America are yet to have an entrant into the list post-2020.

World’s 100 Tallest by Function

At the end of 2023, all-office buildings comprised 36 of the 100 tallest. Mixed-use buildings have been a plurality in this group since 2017 and now comprise 51, with hotel-only (three buildings) and residential-only (10 buildings) making up the rest. “Other” uses, such as government-, religious- and university-related functions, have not been among the world’s 100 tallest since the Soviet Union’s MV Lomonosov State University was eliminated 22 years ago.

World’s 100 Tallest by Material

The abundance of buildings that use multiple materials within the primary structural system continues to dominate the world’s 100 tallest, with composite and mixed structures making up 62% of the list. All-concrete structures, while still a common solution, now make up just 26% of the 100 tallest. All-steel structures have been in decline since 1960, when they peaked at supporting 93 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings. Today, only nine of them sport an all-steel structure. The only all-steel structure to enter the 100 tallest in the last 26 years was 30 Hudson Yards (EW, February 2022), completed in 2019.

World’s 100 Tallest Average Building Height

The average height of all completions in 2023 was 242.9 m — a 2.8% increase from 2022, which had an average completion height of 236.2 m. In light of this increase, 2023’s new additions to the World’s 100 Tallest increased the threshold for entry to 409.7 m in 2023. A total of seven buildings entered the 100 tallest in 2023: Merdeka 118, Kuala Lumpur, at 678.9 m; Wuhan Greenland Center, Wuhan, at 475.6 m; Ping An Finance Center Tower 1, Jinan, at 360 m; Huiyun Center, Shenzhen, at 359.2 m; Il Primo Tower, Dubai, at 356 m; Galaxy World Tower 1, Shenzhen, at 356 m; and Galaxy World Tower 2, Shenzhen, at 356 m.

Predictions for 2024

Of the buildings currently under construction or topped out, 35 are supertalls (300 m or higher). Just 27 of those completing in 2024 would set a record, surpassing the 26 supertall completions in 2019 and indicating a return to the pre-COVID pace of construction. The 2024 list will most likely be led by the completion of International Land-Sea Center, Chongqing, at 458.2 m. In light of the massive number of skyscrapers on deck, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) predicts at least 150 buildings of 200 m and higher to complete in 2024, with as many as 190 completing. Of these, we expect between 15 and 25 to be supertalls.