The Great Malls of China

China is building what is to be the largest mall in the world: 3 times larger than the size of the Mall of America in Minnesota!

Already, four shopping malls in China are larger than the Mall of America. Two, including the South China Mall, are bigger than the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, which just surrendered its status as the world’s largest to an enormous retail center in Beijing. And by 2010, China is expected to be home to at least 7 of the world’s 10 largest malls.

So, how big are China’s mall? Right now, the biggest is this one, the Golden Resources Mall:

For the moment, the world’s biggest mall is the six-million-square-foot Golden Resources Mall, which opened last October in northwestern Beijing. It has already sparked envy and competitive ambition among the world’s big mall builders, who outwardly scoff at the Chinese ascent to mall-dom, even as they plot their own path to build on such scale in China.

How big is six million square feet? That mall, which is expected to cost $1.3 billion when completed, spans the length of six football fields and easily exceeds the floor space of the Pentagon, which at 3.7 million square feet is the world’s largest office building. It is a single, colossal five-story building – with rows and rows of shops stacked on top of more rows and rows of shops – so large that it is hard to navigate among the 1,000 stores and the thousands of shoppers.

The new mall will be even larger: Link – Thanks Tiffany!