Canton Tower

604m broadcast tower with three observation decks, glass-floor sky-walk, and the 'Bubble Tram' Ferris wheel on top.

Canton Tower was completed in 2010 in time for the Guangzhou Asian Games, rising to 604 metres including the antenna mast — at completion the tallest tower in China and briefly the second-tallest in the world by antenna height. The structural form is a hyperboloid: the tower's cross-section is circular at base and summit, but twists as it rises, creating the latticed waist that gives the structure its characteristic narrowing and the local nickname 'Little Waist Girl'. The design is by Dutch architects Mark Hemel and Barbara Kuit from the firm Information Based Architecture, selected through international competition.

The visitor experience is concentrated in several observation levels and extreme activities at various heights. The primary observation floor at 433 metres provides an enclosed viewing gallery with views across the Pearl River delta, the Zhujiang New Town financial district to the north, and on clear days the mountains on the northern edge of the city. A glass-floor sky walk at a higher level allows visitors to look straight down at the ground through a transparent surface. The 'Bubble Tram' — a small Ferris wheel installed around the spire section of the tower above 450 metres, with individual bubble-shaped gondolas — is the distinctive high-altitude experience, rotating at a height where Guangzhou's scale becomes fully apparent.

The tower stands on the south bank of the Pearl River, directly facing the new Guangzhou financial district on one side and the older commercial city on the other. The view from the south bank after dark, with the tower illuminated and the river reflections below, is the canonical nighttime image of modern Guangzhou. The observation levels are most rewarding in the late afternoon and evening, when the haze that reduces daytime visibility in this part of China has typically settled and the city lights begin to define the skyline.