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A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city's overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land.

City skylines serve as a pseudo-fingerprint as no two skylines are alike. For this reason, news and sports programs, television shows, and movies often display the skyline of a city to set a location. The term The Sky Line of New York City was introduced in 1896, when it was the title of a color lithograph by Charles Graham for the color supplement of the New York Journal.^[1] Paul D. Spreiregen, FAIA, has called a [city] skyline "a physical representation [of a city's] facts of life ... a potential work of art ... its collective vista."^[2]

Skylines are often used as backgrounds and establishing shots in film, television programs, news websites, and in other forms of media.

Skylines may be ranked based on subjective criteria. Skylines are often ranked by height and size, such as by the number of buildings taller than a certain height. The article list of cities with the most skyscrapers ranks cities based on the number of skyscrapers that are taller than 150 metres (490 ft).

Emporis was one such service, which used height and other data to give point values to buildings and added them together for skylines. The three cities it ranked highest in 2012 were Hong Kong, New York City, and Singapore.^[6]

• Cityscape
• Skyscraper Index
• List of cities with the most skyscrapers

• Emporis ranking of cities by the visual impact of their skylines
• Attoe, Wayne (1981). Skylines: understanding and molding urban silhouettes. Wiley. ISBN 9780471279402.
• Bacon, Edmund (1967). Design of Cities. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-14-004236-8.
• Lim, Bill; Heath, Tom (1993). Hayman H. (ed.). "What is skyline: a quantitative approach". Architectural Science: Past, Present and Future, Proceedings of the Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association: 23–32.
• Ford, Larry R. (1976). "The urban skyline as a city classification system". Journal of Geography. 75 (3): 154–164. Bibcode:1976JGeog..75..154F. doi:10.1080/00221347608980594.