Tallest building in Africa

What to remember

For a long time only a few hubs such as Cairo, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi had real skylines in Africa. Yet the record belongs to The New Capital in Egypt, where the Iconic Tower has held the record since 2024 at 393.8 m, or 1,292 feet. It is the first supertall skyscraper on the continent.

The tower has 77 floors, mostly offices, and its total floor area exceeds 265,000 m². It is one of 20 towers built for the central business district of the new capital. Its total structural height is given as 394 metres, and it is also the tallest structure in Africa.

Skyscrapers are scarce on the continent: only about 40 exceed 150 m. This comes down to low economic demand, high construction costs and cities that prefer to spread outward rather than build upward. Since the 2000s, though, towers have gone up in Casablanca, Algiers, Addis Ababa and Abidjan, among others.