The Most Beautiful Modern Squares, Streets and Monuments in Asia
6 places in 3 countries · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful modern squares, streets and monuments in Asia are Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Japan), The Motherland Calls (Russia) and Tokyo Skytree (Japan). The list covers 6 modern squares, streets and monuments in 3 countries. Japan has the most, with 3. Last updated 6 October 2026.
The modern monuments of this part of the world were shaped by the extremes of the twentieth century. War produced memorials of a scale and seriousness older statuary never attempted, and the postwar decades of rapid growth produced towers meant to announce a city to the world, first for television broadcasting and then as observation decks reaching ever higher. Concrete and steel made both possible, and many of these structures became the most recognisable silhouettes of their cities.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial is the skeletal domed hall that survived nearest to the hypocentre of the 1945 atomic bombing and was deliberately preserved as a ruin. In Volgograd The Motherland Calls, a colossal concrete figure with raised sword, stands on Mamayev Kurgan, the hill fought over during the Battle of Stalingrad. Vera Mukhina's Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, a pair of stainless-steel figures holding up a hammer and sickle, was created for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 Paris exposition and now stands in Moscow.
Tokyo offers two eras of tower side by side: the orange-and-white Tokyo Tower of 1958, whose lattice recalls the Eiffel Tower, and Tokyo Skytree, which opened in 2012 and reaches 634 metres. In Guangzhou the Canton Tower narrows to a slender waist as its lattice twists, a shape that made it one of the most distinctive tall structures of its time.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hiroshima Peace Memorial | War memorial | Japan | ✓ |
| 2 | The Motherland Calls | War memorial | Russia | |
| 3 | Tokyo Skytree | Observation tower | Japan | |
| 4 | Canton Tower | Observation tower | People's Republic of China | |
| 5 | Tokyo Tower | Observation tower | Japan | |
| 6 | Worker and Kolkhoz Woman | Sculpture | Russia |
01 Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Japan · 1.3 km from Hiroshima34.396° N 132.454° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
DXR · CC BY-SA 4.0 After the war, many in Hiroshima wanted the ruin cleared away; others argued it should remain as a memorial. As the Peace Memorial Park took shape around it between 1950 and 1964, the Dome stayed, and in 1966 the city council resolved to preserve it permanently. The mayor, Shinzo Hamai, raised money in Japan and abroad, at one point collecting donations on the streets of Tokyo. Conservation work has been kept to a minimum, with a steel frame inside to stabilise the walls, so the building looks almost exactly as it did after the explosion: a shell of brick and concrete with the bare skeleton of its dome against the sky.
Did you know? The bomb released energy equal to about 15,000 tonnes of TNT.
02 The Motherland Calls
Russia · 4.4 km from Volgograd48.742° N 44.537° E
Image by alex1983 from Pixabay The ensemble was the work of the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich with the architect Yakov Belopolsky, the same pair behind the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Treptower Park. Their early designs were more modest: a granite group of a kneeling soldier before a female figure of the Motherland, around 30 metres high. The concept changed at the start of the 1960s to a single concrete giant, and the height grew because Nikita Khrushchev wanted it to exceed the Statue of Liberty. The pose owes a debt to the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Did you know? Officials on the planning committee wanted the figure in traditional Russian costume, but Vuchetich refused, insisting on a timeless classical drapery.
03 Tokyo Skytree
Japan · 6.1 km from Tokyo35.710° N 139.811° E
Image by cegoh from Pixabay The form changes as it rises: a three-legged base gives way to a cylinder from about 350 m upwards. Its colour, officially Skytree White, is based on aijiro, a traditional pale indigo-white, and at night LED lighting alternates between Iki, a pale sky blue, and Miyabi, a deep purple. In a city that expects earthquakes, the tower is built around a central shaft of reinforced concrete that is tied to the steel frame only for the first 125 m; above that, oil dampers connect the two, and a tuned mass damper moves out of step with the structure to keep its centre of gravity steady. The designers say the system can absorb half the energy of a quake.
Did you know? The tower was originally planned at 610 metres; in October 2009 the design height was raised to the present 634 metres.
04 Canton Tower
People's Republic of China · 6.1 km from Guangzhou23.109° N 113.319° E
Image by AndyLeungHK from Pixabay It is the second-tallest tower in China and one of the tallest free-standing structures in the world. The main body is 450 m high and the antenna adds another 150; inside are TV and radio facilities, restaurants including a two-storey revolving one, gardens, cinemas and exhibition spaces. At night the whole tower glows: every node of the lattice carries its own LED light, individually controlled, so that colours and animations can run up and down its height, while using only a fraction of the energy normally allowed for facade lighting.
Did you know? The Bubble Tram on its roof, with 16 cabins circling between about 450 and 462 metres, has been recognised as the highest Ferris wheel in the world.
05 Tokyo Tower
Japan · 3.2 km from Tokyo35.659° N 139.746° E
Image by LittleMouse from Pixabay Its colours are set by aviation rules: bands of white and international orange, renewed roughly every seven years with some 28,000 litres of paint in a job that takes a year. It remained Japan's tallest structure until Tokyo Skytree was completed in 2012 and took over television broadcasting, though FM radio stations still transmit from the tower. It has become one of the most recognisable sights of the city, appearing again and again in films and television set in Tokyo.
Did you know? Hundreds of tobi, traditional Japanese steeplejacks skilled at working at height, helped build it, with at least 400 workers on site each day.
06 Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
Russia · 8.5 km from Moscow55.828° N 37.647° E
Image by EvgeniT from Pixabay The engineering was novel. Professor Pyotr Lvov proposed chrome-nickel stainless steel rather than bronze because it would catch the light, and the 0.5 mm skin was joined to its internal frame by spot welding instead of rivets. The group was assembled in the yard of a Moscow factory in a few months over a harsh winter, cut into 65 pieces for the train to Paris and reassembled there. The billowing scarf that seems to float behind the figures needed its own supporting truss. Mukhina received one of the first Stalin Prizes for it in 1941, and from 1947 the sculpture became the emblem of the Mosfilm studio, seen at the start of its films.
Did you know? Mukhina worked out the composition on plaster models, the tallest of them just 95 centimetres high, before it was enlarged to full size.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful modern squares, streets and monuments in Asia?
- On our list, Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Japan) ranks first, followed by The Motherland Calls (Russia) and Tokyo Skytree (Japan).
- Which country has the most modern squares, streets and monuments in Asia?
- In our collection, the most come from Japan (3), Russia (2) and the People's Republic of China (1).
- How tall is Tokyo Skytree?
- Tokyo Skytree is 634 metres tall. It opened in 2012 as a broadcasting and observation tower and is the tallest tower in Japan.
- Who made the statue Worker and Kolkhoz Woman?
- The sculpture was designed by Vera Mukhina for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. It is made of stainless steel and now stands in Moscow.
- What does The Motherland Calls commemorate?
- The statue in Volgograd commemorates the Battle of Stalingrad. It stands on Mamayev Kurgan, a hill that saw heavy fighting, and was completed in 1967 to a design by the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich.
- How many modern squares, streets and monuments are on this list in Asia?
- The list covers 6 modern squares, streets and monuments in 3 countries. Japan has the most, with 3.