Three towers stand within four hundred metres of each other in Lujiazui, and every visitor to Shanghai has to decide which one to go up. The question of the best observation deck Shanghai offers is genuinely contested — the tallest is not automatically the best, the most photographed is the least satisfying to be inside, and one of the three has not been open since 2023, which does not stop it appearing on itineraries and tour listings.
Here is the short version, before the detail. The Shanghai Tower’s 118th floor is the highest and the most impressive engineering, but the windows are set back and the view is slightly remote. The Oriental Pearl is the worst view of the three and the best experience for children, largely because of the glass floor at 259 metres. Jin Mao Tower, which almost nobody considers, is the cheapest, quietest and arguably the most enjoyable, and it has the only outdoor walkway. And the Shanghai World Financial Center — the “bottle opener”, with what was for years the best deck in the city — has been closed for renovation since 2023. This guide compares all four properly, with heights, prices, queue times, sunset arithmetic and a verdict by traveller type.
Table of Contents
- The comparison at a glance
- Shanghai Tower: the highest
- Oriental Pearl: the glass floor and the museum
- Shanghai World Financial Center: closed since 2023
- Jin Mao Tower: the one nobody books
- Which is the best observation deck Shanghai has?
- The best observation deck Shanghai offers, by traveller type
- Timing: sunset, haze and the queue
- The cheaper alternatives that beat all of them
- Practical notes: tickets, metro, what to bring
- What people get wrong
- Frequently Asked Questions
The comparison at a glance
| Shanghai Tower | Oriental Pearl | Jin Mao Tower | SWFC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building height | 632 m | 468 m | 420.5 m | 492 m |
| Deck height | 546 m (floor 118) | 259 m / 263 m / 351 m | 340 m (floor 88) | 474 m (floor 100) |
| Adult ticket | ¥180 | ¥199 combined | Roughly ¥120–160 | — |
| Hours | 08:30–22:00, last entry 21:30 | 09:00–21:00, last entry 20:30 | 08:30–21:30, last entry 21:00 | Closed |
| Typical queue | 20–40 min, up to 2 h on holidays | 30–60 min | Under 10 min | — |
| Glass floor | No | Yes, at 259 m | No, but a glass skywalk outside | Had one |
| Outdoor space | No | Yes, at 90 m | Yes — the 88F skywalk | No |
| Best feature | Height and the lift | The glass floor and the museum | The atrium and no crowds | Was the best deck in the city |
| Worst feature | Set-back windows, crowds | Dated, over-priced, queues | Lowest of the three | Closed since 2023 |
| Status | Open | Open | Open | Closed for renovation |
Prices move, and the Jin Mao figure in particular varies between the official counter and the resale platforms. Treat these as accurate to within about twenty per cent and check on the day.
Shanghai Tower: the highest
632 metres, the third-tallest building in the world, and a genuinely extraordinary piece of engineering — a twisted glass skin wrapped around an inner tower, with a 120-degree rotation that reduces wind loading by roughly a quarter. The observation deck, branded the Shanghai Summit, is on floor 118 at 546 metres, and some tickets add a higher viewing level in the crown above it.
The lift is the best part and nobody warns you about it. It is among the fastest passenger lifts in the world, doing 118 floors in around fifty-five seconds at roughly 20.5 metres per second. Your ears will pop. There is a ceiling display counting the floors and the whole car goes quiet watching it.
The deck itself is a single circular floor with floor-to-ceiling glazing, a café, a small exhibition and a gift shop. The view is enormous — on a clear day you can see the airport, the container port and the river snaking out towards the estuary.
The honest criticism: at 546 metres you are above the interesting layer. The Bund is a thin strip in the middle distance and the individual buildings of Lujiazui are below you rather than around you, which flattens them. The windows are also set back a metre or so from the edge with a low barrier in front, so you cannot lean out over the city the way you can at Jin Mao. And it is by far the busiest of the three — expect twenty to forty minutes in the queue on an ordinary day, and up to two hours during public holidays.
Verdict: go if height itself is the point, or if it is your only trip to Shanghai and you want the definitive one. Our dedicated Shanghai Tower observation deck guide covers ticket types, the crown level and the fast-track option in detail.
Oriental Pearl: the glass floor and the museum
468 metres of pink spheres on concrete legs, finished in 1994, and the building that defined the Shanghai skyline for two decades. It is on every postcard, and it is the one tower where being outside it is better than being inside it.
What you actually get is a sequence of levels rather than one deck:
- 90 m — outdoor observatory. Open air, low, and the most underrated part of the visit for the feeling of being in the city rather than above it.
- 259 m — the Transparent Observatory. A 360-degree glass-floored corridor, and the reason to come. Children love it. Adults with any fear of heights genuinely do not.
- 263 m — the Sightseeing Galleria. The main enclosed deck.
- 267 m — revolving restaurant. Buffet, expensive, mediocre food, decent novelty.
- 351 m — the Space Module. The highest sphere, on the more expensive tickets. A small enclosed room; the view is better than 263 m but not transformatively so.
The standard combined ticket is ¥199 and includes the observation levels plus the Shanghai Urban History and Development Museum in the basement. That museum is the genuine surprise of the whole visit — full-scale reconstructions of 1930s streets, trams, shopfronts and lane houses, and it is far more interesting than the view. A combined ticket adding a Huangpu river cruise runs ¥255–318. The museum alone is ¥35. Children under one metre go free; those between one metre and 1.4 metres, or aged six and under, get half price.
Hours are 09:00–21:00 with last entry at 20:30. Metro Line 2 to Lujiazui, Exit 1 or Exit 2, then a five-minute walk.
The honest criticism: it is dated, the queuing system moves you through several stages, and the fundamental problem is unavoidable — the Oriental Pearl is the most photogenic thing in the Shanghai skyline, and from inside it you are the only person in the city who cannot see it. The view is also the lowest of the three open decks.
Verdict: the right choice if you have children, and the wrong choice for a couple wanting a view. The glass floor and the history museum together justify the ticket; the view on its own does not.
Shanghai World Financial Center: closed since 2023
This needs saying plainly, because it is the single most common piece of out-of-date advice about Shanghai. The SWFC observation decks have been closed since 2023, for internal renovation and what the operator describes as functional upgrades. There is no announced reopening date.
The building — 492 metres, finished in 2008, known universally as the bottle opener for the trapezoidal aperture at the top — is otherwise open and operating normally. Its offices, shops, restaurants and the Park Hyatt hotel on floors 79 to 93 all function. Only the observatory levels on floors 94, 97 and 100 are shut.
That is a real loss. The 100th-floor Sky Walk at 474 metres was a glass-floored bridge across the aperture itself and was, by most accounts, the best observation experience in Shanghai — higher than Jin Mao, more dramatic than the Shanghai Tower, and with the transparent floor the Shanghai Tower does not have.
You will still see it listed as open on tour-operator sites, in older guidebooks and on a number of well-ranked travel articles. Do not buy a ticket from a reseller claiming otherwise. If you want a high vantage point inside the SWFC, the alternative is the Park Hyatt’s restaurants and bar on floors 87 and 91 — a drink there costs more than an observation ticket but requires no queue and comes with a seat.
Jin Mao Tower: the one nobody books
420.5 metres, finished in 1999, and the most architecturally interesting of the four — a stepped pagoda form in steel and glass, proportioned on a repeating ratio of eight, which is the auspicious number. The observatory is on floor 88 at 340 metres.
Two things make it worth the trip. The first is the atrium: the Grand Hyatt occupies floors 53 to 87, and its lobby atrium is a 33-storey hollow cylinder ringed by balconies spiralling upwards. Standing at the bottom and looking up is genuinely disorientating, and it is free to walk in and look.
The second is the Skywalk — a narrow outdoor ledge around the outside of floor 88 at 340 metres, walked in a harness, with no glass between you and the drop. It is a separate and considerably more expensive ticket, and it is the only experience of its kind in Shanghai. Not for everyone; unforgettable for the people it is for.
The standard 88th-floor ticket runs roughly ¥120–160 depending on where you buy it, which makes it the cheapest of the three. Hours are 08:30–21:30 with last entry at 21:00. The queue is usually under ten minutes, even at weekends, because everyone else is next door.
The honest criticism: it is the lowest of the three, and the interior is showing its age. If you have come to Shanghai to stand on the highest thing available, this is not it.
Verdict: the best value and, for a lot of people, the most enjoyable. At 340 metres you are inside the cluster — the Shanghai Tower and the SWFC rise directly above you and the Oriental Pearl sits below, which is a far better composition than looking down on all of it.
Which is the best observation deck Shanghai has?
If you are only going up one tower and you want a single answer: Jin Mao Tower on a clear day, Shanghai Tower if you want the height and the record. That will annoy people, so here is the reasoning.
Observation decks are not judged by altitude. They are judged by whether the city reads as a city from where you are standing. At 340 metres it does — you can pick out the Bund’s individual buildings, follow streets, see the shape of the river bends, and look up at towers that are taller than you. At 546 metres the city becomes a map. Impressive, certainly, but flatter.
The Shanghai Tower wins on three things that matter to many visitors: it is the tallest accessible point in the country, the lift is an experience in itself, and on a genuinely clear day the sheer extent of what you can see is remarkable. If your trip is short and you want the definitive Shanghai view to remember, take it.
The Oriental Pearl wins on none of the view criteria and one important non-view criterion — it is the only one that is actively fun for children, and the museum underneath it is the best introduction to Shanghai’s history in the city.
For a broader look at where to see the city from, including the free options, our best views in Shanghai guide ranks the lot.
The best observation deck Shanghai offers, by traveller type
| You are… | Go to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A first-time visitor with one shot | Shanghai Tower | The tallest, the lift, the definitive view |
| Travelling with children | Oriental Pearl | Glass floor at 259 m plus the history museum |
| On a budget | Jin Mao — or the ¥2 ferry | Cheapest ticket; the ferry is nearly free |
| A photographer | Jin Mao, then the Bund at street level | Depth and layering; decks shoot badly through glass |
| Afraid of heights | The Bund, at ground level | All three decks are genuinely high |
| A couple wanting an evening | A rooftop bar on the Bund | Same view, a seat, a drink, no queue |
| An architecture enthusiast | Jin Mao | The atrium and the proportional system |
| Chasing a thrill | Jin Mao Skywalk | An outdoor ledge at 340 m in a harness |
| Short of time | Jin Mao | No queue; you are in and out in an hour |
Timing: sunset, haze and the queue
Two variables decide whether you see anything: the weather, and when you go.
Visibility. Shanghai is humid and often hazy. Genuinely clear days cluster in autumn — late October and November are the best months — and after rain or a windy front, when the air has been scrubbed. Summer afternoons are frequently a white murk in which the ¥180 buys you a view of cloud. Check visibility before you commit; if the top of the Shanghai Tower is invisible from street level, it is not a day for going up it.
The sunset arithmetic. The best slot is roughly forty minutes before sunset, which gets you daylight, the golden hour and then the lights coming on, all from one ticket. That is also when everyone else wants to go. Practically: join the queue about ninety minutes before sunset, allow twenty to forty minutes to get up, and you will be on the deck with time to find a window.
The quiet windows. First thing, from opening until about 10:30, is empty and the light is good. So is after 20:30, when the sunset crowd has left and the city is fully lit — this is the best time at the Shanghai Tower if you do not mind a night-only view.
Avoid entirely: weekend afternoons, and the National Day and Chinese New Year holiday weeks, when queues at the Shanghai Tower run to two hours and timed tickets sell out days ahead.
The cheaper alternatives that beat all of them
Three of the best views of Shanghai cost almost nothing, and at least one of them is better than any ticketed deck.
The ¥2 public ferry. Jinling Road East to Dongchang Road, five minutes across the Huangpu, standing on an open deck with the Bund behind you and Lujiazui ahead. It is the single best value in Shanghai tourism and most visitors never hear about it. Runs all day, no booking. Note that the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, at around ¥50, is a light show rather than transport and is not the same thing.
Bund rooftop bars. A cocktail at ¥90–140 gets you the Lujiazui skyline from a terrace with a chair, no queue and no glass between you and it. The view from the Puxi side is better than the view from inside Pudong, because from Pudong you cannot see Pudong. Our rooftop bars guide covers which ones are worth the money.
The Bund promenade itself. Free, and the definitive Shanghai view. See the Bund at night for the lighting times and where to stand, and the Bund guide for the buildings behind you.
A fourth, if you are willing to spend on dinner instead of a ticket: the restaurants and bars on floors 87 and 91 of the SWFC, in the Park Hyatt, which remain open. You are inside the building whose deck is closed, higher than Jin Mao, with a seat.
More options along these lines are in our free attractions guide and the Shanghai on a budget guide.
Practical notes: tickets, metro, what to bring
- Metro: Line 2 to Lujiazui for all three towers. Exits 1 and 2 for the Oriental Pearl; the raised pedestrian circle connects everything else. The metro guide covers the interchanges.
- Buying tickets: at the counter with cash or QR payment, or in advance through Trip.com, Klook or the towers’ own WeChat mini-programs. Advance purchase saves money at Jin Mao and time at the Shanghai Tower.
- Timed entry: the Shanghai Tower increasingly uses timed slots at busy periods. Book ahead during holidays or you may not get up at all.
- Photography through glass: press the lens directly against the window, turn off your flash, and wear dark clothing — reflections ruin more deck photographs than anything else. Our Shanghai photography guide has more.
- Combined tickets: the Oriental Pearl plus river cruise combination at ¥255–318 is reasonable value if you were going to do the cruise anyway; see the river cruise guide first.
- Time needed: 60–90 minutes at Jin Mao, 90–120 at the Shanghai Tower, and 2.5–3 hours at the Oriental Pearl if you do the museum.
- With children: the Oriental Pearl and, nearby, the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium make a good half-day. See Shanghai with kids.
What people get wrong
Buying a ticket for the SWFC deck. It has been closed since 2023 and still appears as open on a great many websites and in a number of tour packages.
Going up on a hazy day. The ticket is not refundable because you could not see anything. Look at the top of the tower from the street first.
Assuming taller is better. At 546 metres the city flattens out. At 340 metres it does not. Height is not the same as view quality.
Doing two towers. Nobody needs two. Pick one and spend the money and the queue time on a rooftop bar instead.
Skipping the museum at the Oriental Pearl. It is included in the ¥199 ticket and is better than the view above it.
Not booking a timed slot for the Shanghai Tower in holiday season. Turning up on 2 October without a reservation means a two-hour queue or no entry.
Missing the Jin Mao atrium. You can walk into the Grand Hyatt lobby and look up the 33-storey spiral for nothing at all.
Ignoring the ferry. Two yuan. Five minutes. Both skylines. It genuinely competes with the ¥180 ticket.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which observation deck in Shanghai is the highest?
The Shanghai Tower’s floor 118 at 546 metres, inside a building of 632 metres — the tallest accessible viewpoint in China. The Shanghai World Financial Center’s floor 100 at 474 metres was higher than Jin Mao but has been closed since 2023. Jin Mao Tower’s 88th floor sits at 340 metres and the Oriental Pearl’s main levels at 259 and 263 metres.
Is the SWFC observation deck open?
No. The Shanghai World Financial Center’s observatory levels on floors 94, 97 and 100 have been closed for renovation since 2023, with no announced reopening date. The rest of the building — offices, shops, restaurants and the Park Hyatt hotel — operates normally. Older articles and some tour listings still show it as open; they are wrong.
How much does the Shanghai Tower observation deck cost?
A standard adult ticket for the 118th-floor deck is ¥180. It is open 08:30 to 22:00 with last admission at 21:30. Fast-track and combination tickets cost more, and timed entry slots are increasingly used at busy periods — book ahead during public holidays or you may not get in.
Does the Shanghai Tower have a glass floor?
No. The Shanghai Tower’s deck has floor-to-ceiling glazing but no transparent floor, and the windows are set back from the edge with a low barrier. For a glass floor, the Oriental Pearl’s Transparent Observatory at 259 metres is the option. Jin Mao has an outdoor Skywalk ledge at 340 metres, walked in a harness, which is a different proposition entirely.
Is the Oriental Pearl Tower worth visiting?
For families, yes — the glass floor at 259 metres is the best thing any of the towers offers children, and the Shanghai Urban History and Development Museum included in the ¥199 ticket is excellent. For adults chasing a view, no: it is the lowest of the three, the interior is dated, and from inside it you cannot see the tower that makes the skyline famous.
How long do you queue for the Shanghai Tower?
Twenty to forty minutes on an ordinary day, and up to two hours during Chinese New Year and the October National Day week. Jin Mao is usually under ten minutes at any time. The Oriental Pearl runs thirty to sixty minutes and moves you through several stages rather than one queue.
What is the best time of day to go up a Shanghai tower?
About forty minutes before sunset, which gives you daylight, golden hour and the lights coming on from one ticket — join the queue ninety minutes before sunset to make that work. The quieter alternatives are from opening until 10:30, or after 20:30 when the sunset crowd has gone and the city is fully lit.
Can you see anything on a hazy day?
Often not. Shanghai is humid and frequently hazy, particularly in summer, and tickets are not refunded because the view was cloud. Look at the top of the Shanghai Tower from street level before you buy: if you cannot see it, do not go up it. The clearest conditions come in late October and November, and after rain or a windy front.
Which tower is best for photography?
Jin Mao at 340 metres, because the city still reads as a city and the taller towers rise around you rather than below you. Whichever you choose, shoot with the lens pressed to the glass, the flash off and dark clothing on — reflections spoil more photographs from these decks than anything else. Street level on the Bund beats all of them for a classic skyline shot.
Is there a cheaper way to get a good view of Shanghai?
Yes, and it is arguably better. The ¥2 public ferry between Jinling Road East and Dongchang Road crosses the Huangpu in five minutes on an open deck with both skylines in view. A Bund rooftop bar at ¥90–140 for a cocktail gets you the same skyline with a seat and no queue. The Bund promenade itself is free.
Can I visit two observation decks in one day?
You can — they are within four hundred metres of each other — but there is little point. The views are variations on the same scene from different altitudes, and the second ticket buys diminishing returns. Spend the money on a rooftop bar or the river cruise instead.
Do I need to book Shanghai Tower tickets in advance?
On an ordinary weekday, no — the counter is fine. During public holidays, weekends in peak season, or if you want a specific sunset slot, yes. Timed entry is increasingly used at busy periods and slots sell out days ahead in holiday weeks. Trip.com, Klook and the tower’s own WeChat mini-program all sell them.
Pick one tower, check the haze before you buy, and put the money you saved on the second ticket into a drink on a Bund terrace afterwards. If you want the full ranking of viewpoints across the city, ticketed and free, start with the best views in Shanghai; for what else fills a day in Lujiazui, see things to do in Shanghai and the neighbourhood guide. Ticket tiers and opening hours for the Oriental Pearl are listed by TravelChinaGuide, and the structural data for all four towers is held by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
