TOP 5 MALLS

The Dubai Mall is the biggest shopping mall in the world based on total area, and the sixth largest by gross leasable area. Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, it constitutes part of the US$ 20 billion Burj Khalifa complex and will offer 1,200 shops when fully operational. Mall access is via Doha St, which was converted to a two-level roadway in April 2009.

After its opening date was postponed twice, the Dubai Mall welcomed its first visitors on 4 November 2008. With about 600 retailers operational, this was the largest mall opening ever. The Dubai Mall reported over 60,000 tickets sold for the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo in the first five days following its opening. During the first year of operation, the mall received 37 million visitors; it attracts more than 750,000 visitors every week.

Covering an area of 1.1 km² (12 million ft² (bigger than 50 soccer or football fields), the Dubai Mall has a total indoor floor area of 0.54 km² (5.9 million ft²) and 0.35 km² (3.77 million ft²) of leasable area, about the same as the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada. Before the Dubai Mall opened, City Stars Mall in Cairo, Egypt had been the largest largest mall in the Middle East since 2003 with a gross area of over 743,000 m² (8 million ft²).

The Dubai Mall offers 10 to 15 distinct “malls-within-a-mall” totaling 0.84 km² (9 million ft²) of retail shopping space. Attractions include the world’s largest gold souk with 220 retailers; the 79,000 m² (850,000 ft² ) Fashion Catwalk atrium; Fashion Avenue, with 70 haute couture boutiques; the first Galeries Lafayette department store in the Middle East; Oasis Fountain Waterfall; and WaterFront Atrium. Other features include: SEGA Republic, the region's first SEGA indoor theme park, on 7,100 m² (76,000 ft²); KidZania, a 7,400 m² (80,000 ft²) children’s “edu-tainment” complex; a 22-screen cineplex, the largest in Dubai; and The Grove, an indoor-outdoor streetscape with a fully retractable roof. The mall also presents over 160 food and beverage sites; 220 gold and jewelry sales outlets; a supermarket, an organic food mart, and a 250-room luxury hotel. The British toy store Hamley’s is there too: its 3,000 m² (32,000 ft²) store includes a reconstruction of London’s Regent Street, and its franchise is owned by Retail Arabia. Bloomingdale’s department store opened at the end of 2009.

There are over 14,000 covered parking spaces in three car parks, with valet service and a car-locator system.

West Edmonton Mall (WEM), at Edmonton, in Alberta, Canada, is North America’s largest shopping mall and the fifth largest worldwide. It was founded in 1981 by the Ghermezian brothers, who emigrated from Iran in 1959. After it first opened, it was the world’s largest mall for 23 years.

WEM first opened its doors to the public on 15 September 1981; three extensions have since been added. It covers a gross area of about 0.57 km² (well over 6 million ft²), offering over 800 stores and services and parking for over 20,000 vehicles. It also provides employment for more than 23,000 persons. WEM attracts 28.2 million visitors per year; the number of shoppers fluctuates between 60,000 to 150,000 daily according to the day.

Major attractions include Galaxyland, an indoor amusement park. It is the largest such park in the world and features 24 rides and attractions: the World Waterpark, the world’s largest indoor waterpark, built in 1985, covering over 20,000 m² (4.9 acres). The waterpark has the world’s largest indoor wave pool and is famous for the Sky Screamer: its high-speed water slide, which at 24 m (79 ft) is often taken for the highest slide in the park. The park’s highest slide is in fact the Twister, which is 25.3 m (83 ft) high. The mall has an indoor lake with a salt-water habitat for four sea lions and including a large-scale replica of the Santa María that was built for the 1986 World Exposition in Vancouver. At the center of the mall lies the Ice Palace, a scaled-down copy of a National Hockey League (NHL) regulation-sized ice rink.

WEM also features a 13-screen cinema with an IMAX theater, a miniature 18-hole golf course, a concert venue, a hotel, and two food courts.

Berjaya Times Square KL is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It consists of a twin-tower complex including a shopping center and two five-star hotels. The property was opened in October 2003 by the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad. Both towers are 203 m (666 ft) tall and have 48 floors.

The complex is one of the largest structures in the world; it has also been called the world’s largest building ever built in a single phase of construction, with 700,000 m² (7.5 million ft²) of built-up floor area. It offers office space as well as shopping, with room for over 1,000 retail shops, luxury accommodation in 1,200 service suites, food and beverages from 65 food outlets, and entertainment attractions such as Cosmo’s World, the largest indoor theme park in Asia; and the first IMAX 2&3D cinema theater in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur Monorail’s Imbi station is connected to the building by a footbridge.

Mall of America (MOA) is a mega-size shopping mall in the Twin Cities suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota, USA.

MOA is the third largest mall in North America following the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Canada, and the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1992 and is “only” the second largest mall in the USA in terms of retail space; nevertheless, it is the most visited shopping mall in the world, receiving 40 million visitors annually. The Ghermezian family from Canada owns the Triple Five Group that owns and manages the Mall of America as well as the West Edmonton Mall.

With a gross area of 390,000 m² (4,200,000 ft²), MOA is big enough to swallow Yankee Stadium seven times, with 232,000 m² (2,500,000 ft²) of retail space available. The mall is roughly rectangular and divided into four differently decorated zones, with more than 520 stores arranged over three levels on the sides of the rectangle plus an additional level on the fourth, eastern side.

Among the mall’s attractions are an indoor amusement park, underwater aquarium, and a 14-screen movie theater.

The Istanbul Cevahir Shopping and Entertaining Centre, or Cevahir Shopping Mall, is a modern shopping and entertainment complex situated in Istanbul, Turkey, in the business district on the European side of the city, between Şişli and Mecidiyeköy. It opened on 15 October 2005. Also known as Şişli Kültür ve Ticaret Merkezi (Şişli Cultural and Trade Centre), Istanbul Cevahir is the largest shopping mall in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

The project, which originally involved a trade complex with retail zones and three skyscrapers of 40 and 48 floors to replace an old Istanbul bus depot, was designed in 1987 by American architects Minoru Yamasaki & Associates. The foundation stone was laid in 1997, but completing the shopping section alone took eight years as construction suffered numerous delays. Among the other major architects to collaborate on the project was Can Yavuzarslan, a dual citizen of Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Istanbul Cevahir has a total gross area of 420,000 m² (4,521,000 ft²) on ten floors and cost US$250 million to build. The shopping mall extends over six floors to hold over 343 shops, some being the first to sell certain international brands in Turkey; 34 fast-food venues; and 14 exclusive restaurants. It also features a large event stage; 12 cinemas, including a private theater and a children’s cinema; a bowling alley; a roller coaster; and various other forms of entertainment. The building’s glass roof, covering 2,500 m² (26,910 ft²), holds the second largest clock in the world, with a diameter of almost 40 m (131 ft) and digits three meters (10 ft) high.

The complex provides jobs for over 5,000 employees, parking for 2,500 cars, as well as easy access by Istanbul metro: three floors of the shopping mall have direct links to the metro line.

Strict, “airport security type” measures apply.