The Guangzhou Towers Walking Tour is part of The Year of the Monkey Trip Report which covers the following places:
- New York, New York
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
- Guangzhou, China
- Hong Kong
- Shenzhen, China
- Sanya, China
Given the number of convenient stores, Guangzhou is a dangerous place to play my Hong Kong Drinking Game, a clever way of exploring Hong Kong on foot. It’s also home to many tall structures whose rankings among the tallest man-made creations is hard to keep straight. I’ll start with the Guangzhou West Tower which was supposed to be part of a set. It is the 16th tallest building in the world and nicer to look at than its fraternal twin, the Guangzhou East Tower which is the 7th tallest building in the world. (It was #5 when I wrote my Lord of the Bling: The 10 Tallest Towers post in August 2014.) The East Tower is formally called the Guangzhou Chow Tai Fook Finance Centre. As of writing this post, it is the second tallest building in China with the Shanghai Tower coming in as number one.
The Canton Tower is the tallest structure in Guangzhou and it is the 7th tallest structure in the world. It was the tallest tower in the world from 2009-2011 beating out Drake’s CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. That title is now held by the Tokyo Skytree.
Confused yet? I know I was which is why I just snapped pictures and hoped to figure out who was what when I got home.
Beyond those buildings, there were many others that were equally captivating despite not ranking as the tallest this or that.
Overall, it’s great to walk around the streets of Guangzhou and marvel at the amazing buildings. Just be sure to bring some Icy Hot for the inevitable neck strain.
