Most of these lists are compiled by ignorant magazine editors who will just throw on whatever city they've heard of before. But yeah, if done objectively, then Doha, Manama, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Baku should all be on here. I also think some city like Prague or Budapest should make the rankings, too. But Hong Kong deserves the #1 spot.
Not really my type of quiz. Those rankings seem to equate Skyline with Skyscraper, which I mostly find to be steril and bland. As architecture, they convey a quantitative skills - larger, higher, more difficult - but don't hold anything in regard of intimacy or experience of individual people. I would think, that a skyline of Kyoto or Florence would certainly belong on such a ranking, if those things were considered.
Yes, I was thinking that these rankings seem to favour skyscrapers. My favourite skyline is Oxford's dreaming spires; in my opinion, the fewer skyscrapers, the better.
Cities like Kyoto and Florence are beautiful up close, but for me personally, most of the cities in this quiz look far more impressive from far away. Most old cities don't even have much of a skyline at all to be honest - buildings need to rise to prominence for that to happen.
Idk if you climb any of the hills round Durham and then turn back towards the cathedral, it's unfailingly breathtaking. (And so is the hill climb for that matter.)
I second this. But was it even more odd with these lists is that they are heavily inconsistent each individual by its own. "Obviously" any skyline is much more interesting/beautiful/impressive when illuminated at night compared to their steril counterparts at day light. Also, Rio is always "proven" by a photo from above where you explicitly can not see its skyline, i.e. the contrast between constructions and the sky. Etc. etc.
Sometimes it seems ONLY the buildings (and the tall ones at that) seem to be considered, not the backdrop – e.g. the absence of Boston, maybe Denver, even Pittsburgh? – but only sometimes (Rio, LA). On the other hand, if we're just going with "impressive" and buildings, I'm not sure how much more impressive you can get than St. Petersburg and their new, pointy, spiry thing – or, for that matter, heaven forfend, Pyongyang. That never-completed hotel of theirs is nothing if not… impressive.
Pittsburgh blows me away every time with the location and unique buildings. You don't expect a smaller city like that to be so interesting. Of course its not as cool as seeing NYC or London imo but it gets far closer than people think.
ya, Pittsburgh has some really nice views. Went to see a pirates game and from the stands you can see across the river to the main part of the city, just beautiful.
What about Moscow and Kiev? Moscow's skyline combines a millenium of architecture starting with the Kremlin and several cathedrals, then the 7 stalinist sykscrapters, and finally a district of modern glassy skyscrapers. IMHO only few cities on these lists (such as Singapore, Shanghai) can compete with Moscow for the first place. Kiev features the Mother Motherland statue (besides its "normal" skyline) which is at least as impressive as statue liberty or Christ the Redeemer, IMHO.
As a 360° binocular view skyline, Moscow is very interesting. It's a great postcard collage, albeit one that doesn't fit into convenient narrow photographs.
I have to agree with most posters that flat cities like Toronto and Bangkok with random white boxes are rather dull. I've never understood the love for the Sydney cityscape. Cool opera House beside a cool bridge and done.
The endless ocean of mid-rise towers in São Paulo, however, has always been fascinating to me in that it forms a gigantic, uniform, urban scene without the competing dominance of central skyscrapers.
Toronto is much less boxy than a lot of the other ones, the CN tower and the skydome provide a much more interesting shape to me than a lot of other cities
I was really surprised Chicago wasn't higher on the list. I guess other cities have caught up in recent years while Chi-town has mostly stayed the same in this regard.
I agree that Chicago not being higher surprised me, although I disagree that Chicago hasn't changed much. It has built and continues to build numerous skyscrapers every year.
Nothing in Toronto as impressive as Sears Tower (or whatever they're calling it now). It's a joke that it gets ranked ahead of Paris (!!!), and I'm from Ontario
Sears Tower may be impressive in some ways, but it looks boring as hell to me. Both the CN tower and the skydome are more interesting visually than sears tower.
Rio and Paris really don't have the skyscraper skyline...I would put my hometown, Chicago at 5. Fortunate to have seen 16 of the 20 listed. Shanghai is next on my list.
There really are a lot of Chinese cities with impressive skyscrapers though. Beijing, Guangzhou, Macau, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, and Tianjin all could've reasonably been on here.
The idea that Los Angeles is ranked one spot above San Francisco is absolute blasphemy. San Francisco has a beautiful collection of modern skyscrapers right against the bay, complete with two iconic buildings (Salesforce Tower, Transamerica Pyramid) and two world-famous bridges. Los Angeles is a disgusting cesspool of highways and smog.
Yeah not sure what they were thinking there, either. Agree that San Francisco's skyline is more impressive than Los Angeles', as well as all ten of the cities I listed above.
Playing Devil's advocate. Looking at the skyline itself, San Francisco has elevated freeways while much of those in Los Angeles are below grade level. San Francisco has more fog than L.A. has smog. L.A. has loftier hills. Building-wise, neither are anything on a world class scale. Just scenery-wise, Anchorage and Honolulu would be the 2 U.S. cities to dwarf San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Hey Wolfie, I like the idea and the averaging across 6 sources, but it is still objective and I'm sure I don't agree with most of these rankings because they all have the same idea of what is an impressive skyline - skyscrapers and lights.
Los Angeles shouldn't be on this list. The city is like 99% suburbs and the small downtown there is nothing special. How does that count as an impressive skyline?
The ranking appears to take into account the number and iconicity of skyscrapers. If we only look at the numbers, the number of Chinese cities on the list will be much greater than the current situation.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi6hMigls7iAhWOEHwKHU96ATsQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.barrystickets.com%2Fpirates-seating-chart%2F&psig=AOvVaw1wD_l2wnIgU-GqblBL4vxU&ust=1559680897773322
I have to agree with most posters that flat cities like Toronto and Bangkok with random white boxes are rather dull. I've never understood the love for the Sydney cityscape. Cool opera House beside a cool bridge and done.
The endless ocean of mid-rise towers in São Paulo, however, has always been fascinating to me in that it forms a gigantic, uniform, urban scene without the competing dominance of central skyscrapers.
Athens
Perth (Aus)
St Malo