National Skyscraper Day Date in the current year: September 3, 2024

A skyscraper is a very tall high-rise building that is continuously habitable and has multiple floors. According to different definitions, a building must be at least 100 or 150 meters tall in order to qualify as a skyscraper. Skyscrapers higher than 300 meters are referred to as supertall buildings, and skyscrapers rising over 600 meters are called megatall buildings. Modern skyscrapers may host residential spaces, offices, hotels, and retail spaces.

The term skyscraper originated in the United States in the late 19th century. It was applied to buildings with a steel-frame structure that had at least ten stories. The world’s first skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago. It was completed in 1885 and had ten stories with a height of 42 meters. Two more stories were added in 1891, bringing the height of the building to 55 meters. The Home Insurance Building was demolished in 1931 to make way for a new skyscraper, the Field Building.

The steel frame is an engineering technique that made it possible to construct very tall buildings. Since the structural steel frame bears the load of the building, the exterior walls of modern skyscrapers are not load-bearing. Due to this, they can be made from various types of materials including metals, masonry materials, and glass.

As of 2022, the world’s top 10 tallest skyscrapers were Burj Khalifa (Dubai, UAE, 830 m), Merdeka 118 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 679 m), Shanghai Tower (Shanghai, China, 632 m), Abraj Al Bait Hotel Tower (Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 601 m), Ping An Finance Center (Shenzhen, China, 599 m), Lotte World Tower (Seoul, South Korea, 556 m), One World Trade Center (New York City, United States, 546 m), Tianjin CTF Finance Center (Tianjin, China, 530 m), Guangzhou CTF Finance Center (Guangzhou, China, 530 m), and China Zun (Beijing, China, 528 m)*.

There are 14 cities in the world that have more than a hundred skyscrapers that are taller then 150 m. They are Hong Kong, Shenzhen, New York City, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Guangzhou, Kuala Lumpur, Chongqing, Chicago, Wuhan, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Hong Kong is the only city in the world to have more than 500 skyscrapers that have a height of 150 m or more.

The origin of National Skyscraper Day is unclear, but no one could deny that skyscrapers and their creators deserve to be celebrated. You can observe the holiday by reading a book or watching a documentary about the most famous skyscrapers, visiting the top of a skyscraper near you, taking a picture of a skyscraper if you’re afraid of heights and are not ready to ride the elevator to the top of a skyscraper just yet, or building a skyscraper model. And don’t forget to post about the holiday on social media using the hashtags #NationalSkyscraperDay and #SkyscraperDay.

* heights are measured to the pinnacle and rounded to the nearest meter