Vancouver is the most populous city in the Canadian province of British Columbia. With a metropolitan area population of 2,642,825 as of 2021, it is the third largest metropolitan area in Canada. Vancouver's skyline is characterized by its abundance and density of residential towers, unique amongst cities in North America, as well as its position on a peninsula on the Burrard Inlet. As of 2025, Vancouver has 71 buildings that reach a height of 100 m (328 ft), and Greater Vancouver has the second most skyscrapers and high-rises in Canada, behind Toronto.

One of the earliest tall buildings in the city was the Hotel Vancouver, one of Canada's grand railway hotels. Vancouver underwent a building boom starting in the mid-1960s, with many notable office towers such as TD Tower and the Harbour Centre being added to the skyline in the 1970s. From the 1980s onwards, Vancouver's urban planning in downtown has been highly influenced by the philosophy of Vancouverism, which encouraged mixed-use developments, narrow high-rise residential towers atop a commercial base, and reliance on public transit. The majority of high-rise construction since the early 1990s has been residential, and this boom has continued to the present.

The city has 27 protected view corridors which limit the construction of tall buildings that interfere with the line of sight to the North Shore Mountains, the downtown skyline, and the waters of English Bay and the Strait of Georgia. Nevertheless, there are seven buildings taller than 150 m (492 ft) in Vancouver today. The tallest building in the city is the 62-storey, 201 (659) Living Shangri-La, completed in 2010. It took the title from One Wall Centre, another mixed-use skyscraper with hotel and residential components, which was completed in 2001. Living Shangri-La was the first building in Vancouver to surpass 150 metres, marking a trend in increasingly tall buildings since the 2010s. Some notable additions include Paradox Hotel Vancouver (2016), Vancouver House (2019), and The Butterfly (2024), currently the city's second, seventh, and fifth-tallest buildings respectively. A relaxation of the view corridor policy in 2024 will likely encourage further growth across the Downtown Peninsula. In 2025, a proposal surfaced for a three-tower complex with a 315 m (1,033) supertall skyscraper, which would become the tallest building in the city and in all of Western Canada if built.

Almost all of the city's buildings that exceed 100 metres in height are located in Downtown Vancouver and the nearby areas that make up the Downtown Peninsula, including Yaletown and Coal Harbour. Shorter high-rises can be found more sparsely in neighbourhoods such as Gastown and Fairview that surround the Peninsula. A growing number of high-rise developments have occurred outside of the peninsula in recent years, including a cluster of high-rises around Marine Drive station in South Vancouver that appeared in the 2010s. The indigenous-led Sen̓áḵw development, currently under construction at the foot of the Burrard Bridge, will extend the skyline to the southwest, while the Oakridge Center redevelopment around Oakridge Park will result in a new high-rise cluster in Oakridge.

Vancouver's history of skyscrapers began with the Dominion Building, the city's first high-rise. It was a 13-storey Beaux-Arts style commercial building completed in 1910. It was briefly the tallest building in Vancouver and in the entirety of the British Empire, until the nearby Sun Tower rose in 1912. Commissioned by L. D. Taylor to house his newspaper, The Vancouver World, he intended for the building to be the tallest in the city. These early high-rises were located around the city's Commercial Square (now the Victory Square park), contrasting the heavy stone construction of the turn of the century.

The Edwardian Vancouver Block, at 15 stories tall, was also completed in 1912, featuring a clock tower. Neon lighting would be added to the clock face in 1927, the first neon lighting erected in Vancouver. These early high-rises reflected the city's early economic boom, driven by rapid population growth; between 1901 and 1911, Vancouver's population grew from 26,133 to 100,401. The Sun Tower would be overtaken by Marine Building in 1930, designed in the Art Deco style that was in vogue in North America at the time. The 21-storey, 98 m (321 ft) tall building was named after the marine-themed ornaments that decorate it, such as depictions of sea snails, crabs, and turtles.

Another early high-rise was the Hotel Vancouver, the second building to hold that name; it was an Italian Renaissance style hotel built in 1916. The hotel sat on the site of the original Hotel Vancouver, which had a shingle-style design and was the city's first grand hotel when it was completed in 1888. The first hotel closed in 1913 and was later demolished. Both hotels were built by the Canadian Pacific Railway; a rival company, the Canadian Northern Railway, and later the Canadian National Railway, had planned to build a hotel of its own in the city. The new hotel, located northwest of the Hotel Vancouver, began construction in 1928; however, the Great Depression delayed the completion and opening of the hotel until 1939. Money to finally complete the hotel was provided by the Canadian government in 1937. Fearing the market was not large enough for competing hotels, the railways agreed to a joint CP-CN hotel as a condition of the completion. The second hotel was closed in 1939 to prevent competition with the new hotel. It was used as a barracks during World War II, and subsequently demolished in 1949. The new Châteauesque Hotel Vancouver was the first building to breach 100 m (328 ft) in height. It remained as the city's tallest building for over 30 years, and is now considered one of Canada's grand railway hotels.

Little to no new high-rises were built downtown between the 1940s and the late 1960s, other than the completion of the new BC Electric headquarters (today the Electra condominiums), completed in 1957. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Vancouver witnessed a major expansion of skyscraper and high-rise construction downtown, fundamentally reshaping its skyline. These new skyscrapers largely adopted the international and modern styles. Notable new offices included Arthur Erickson Place in 1968, the TD Tower in 1972, and the Royal Centre in 1973. TD Tower, which is connected to the Pacific Centre shopping mall, overtook the Hotel Vancouver to briefly become the tallest building in Vancouver at 127 m (417 ft), before the Royal Centre took the title a year later at a height of 145 m (476 ft). Granville Square, completed in 1973, became a prominent building overlooking Waterfront station; the top of the building houses the Vancouver Harbour Control Tower, the tallest air traffic control tower in the world at 142 m (466 ft) high. Another major development was the Bentall Centre, which initially consisted of four office towers, built between 1967 and 1981.