We Colonize the Sky, More than Ever

We just can’t stop colonizing the skies. A new reportWE shows that for the second year in a row, humans erected more skyscrapers than in any previous year.

According to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, in 2015 we set a record for the most completed buildings that tower 200 meters or taller. With 106 new buildings completed, that’s more than any year before that, says the council. Even more are expected in 2016.

For the eighth year in a row, China was far and away the biggest builder, with 62 newly finished buildings. Indonesia came in second, with nine completed skyscrapers.

Jakarta was the city with the most new tall buildings, including the Sahid Sudirman Center, an office building 258 meters tall.

The tallest of the new structures, China’s Shanghai Tower, was finished in late 2015. Standing at 632 meters with a whopping 128 stories, it’s now the second tallest building in the world, after Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

The second tallest in 2015 was New York’s 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in the western hemisphere, at 425.5 meters.

See the tallest 20 completed in the year, by height.

This article was first published in Quartz in January 2016