Skyscraper observation decks
The highest one open to the public sits on the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa. The best view in a given city is usually somewhere lower, and this page explains why.
What an observation deck is
An observation deck is a floor of a tall building opened to the public for the view. You buy a ticket, take an elevator past the offices and apartments, and arrive on a floor that has no other use. Some are glazed from floor to ceiling, some are open to the weather, and a few buildings have one of each.
The height quoted for a deck is not the height of its building. The Burj Khalifa measures 828 m to the top of its spire, and the highest floor you can stand on is 273 m below that. The Empire State Building is 381 m, with its 86th-floor observatory at 320 m.
The highest decks
| Deck | Building | City | Floor | Height | Air |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At The Top Sky | Burj Khalifa | Dubai | 148 | 555 m | Enclosed |
| Free Sky | Ping An Finance Center | Shenzhen | 116 | 547 m | Enclosed |
| Shanghai Tower Observatory | Shanghai Tower | Shanghai | 118 | 546 m | Enclosed |
| Seoul Sky | Lotte World Tower | Seoul | 118 | 500 m | Enclosed |
| Cloud Observatory | Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre | Guangzhou | 109 | 439 m | Enclosed |
| Skydeck and The Ledge | Willis Tower | Chicago | 103 | 412 m | Enclosed |
| One World Observatory | One World Trade Center | New York | 100 to 102 | 386 m | Enclosed |
| Taipei 101 Observatory | Taipei 101 | Taipei | 89 | 383 m | Both |
| Edge | 30 Hudson Yards | New York | 100 | 345 m | Open-air |
| Empire State Building Observatory | Empire State Building | New York | 86 and 102 | 320 m | Both |
| The View from The Shard | The Shard | London | 69 to 72 | 244 m | Both |
Shenzhen and Shanghai are within a meter of each other, and both operators have claimed the record because the two cities measure from different reference points. Seoul Sky is the highest deck outside China and the Gulf. Guangzhou has two decks in sight of each other: the Cloud Observatory in the CTF Finance Centre, and the Canton Tower across the river, which is a broadcast tower rather than a building and takes visitors to 488 m. Summit One Vanderbilt in New York, at 324 m since 2021, sells mirrored rooms and a glass elevator on the outside of the building instead of altitude.
Enclosed or open-air
Every deck above 450 m is enclosed, and wind is the reason. Air speed rises with height, and at 500 m a breeze at street level is strong enough to knock a person over. The Burj Khalifa deck one floor up, At The Top Sky, has an outdoor terrace that closes when the wind picks up. Taipei 101 keeps its 91st-floor outdoor deck shut for much of the year for the same reason.
Edge at Hudson Yards, at 345 m, is the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere, a triangle that juts 24 m out from the side of the building with nothing under the far corner. Open air changes the visit more than fifty meters of height does, because glass takes the wind and the noise away with it and puts reflections in your photographs.
Glass floors and ledges
The Ledge at the Willis Tower is four glass boxes that cantilever 1.3 m out from the 103rd floor, so you stand on glass with 412 m of Chicago under your shoes. Edge has a glass floor panel, the CN Tower has had one since 1994, and Seoul Sky has a glass-bottomed walkway at 478 m. They cost nothing extra and they are the part people remember.
A glass floor is also the part that breaks. The Ledge cracked under visitors in 2014 and again in 2019, both times in the protective coating over the structural glass, which is why a box is sometimes roped off when you get there.
Tickets and time slots
Nearly every deck sells a timed ticket for a half-hour entry window. New York decks run roughly $40 to $60 for an adult at the time of writing, the Burj Khalifa splits its pricing between the 124th floor and the higher Sky ticket, and London and Tokyo sit lower. Prices move every year and vary by date within the same week, so check before you go rather than trusting a figure on any page, this one included.
The slot 45 minutes before sunset sells out first everywhere, because it is the only one that gives you the city lit and unlit on one ticket. It also costs more at most decks. Book it a week ahead in summer. A weekday morning is cheaper, emptier and often clearer, since haze builds through a hot afternoon.
The tallest deck is not the best view
A skyline is a thing you look at from outside it. From the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa you look down on Dubai from directly above, and the towers of Sheikh Zayed Road flatten into a street plan. From Top of the Rock, 260 m up at Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building stands in front of you with Midtown behind it, and that is the photograph people have in mind when they book a deck.
The same logic decides New York. One World Observatory and Edge are higher, but both sit at the edge of a cluster instead of across from one. In Chicago the Willis Tower Skydeck has the altitude, while 360 Chicago on the John Hancock Center gets the lakefront and the Loop in one frame. Decide what you want in the picture, then go up the building that is not in it.
Free ways to get high up
Sky Garden, on the top three floors of 20 Fenchurch Street in London, costs nothing and needs a booking released about three weeks ahead. It looks down the Thames at Tower Bridge and across at The Shard. A drink in a 50th-floor hotel bar costs less than a deck ticket in most cities and comes with a seat, and some city halls have free galleries, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.
If you are picking a building to go up on September 3rd, the things to do on Skyscraper Day starts with the deck nearest you, and the New York page says which of its towers are open to visitors. Twelve famous skyscrapers covers the buildings most of these decks sit in.