While malls might be slowly becoming a thing of the past, many still exist in all their glory, and we’re taking a look at the biggest malls in the world in 2017.
There used to be a time where going to the mall was a normal part of life. From clothes and shoes to home goods, everything people needed could be found in the mall. These massive, multi-story venues also served as the go-to hangout spot for teens in many of America’s cities. While that trend disappeared by the time I was a teen, I do remember my older siblings always visiting the mall with friends. I guess there’s something intriguing about being able to walk in circles and pass the same stores and people over and over. Personally, I really hate shopping and only ever liked going to the mall for the food court, and the chocolate chip cookies with creme sandwiched in the middle.
While traditional shopping malls may not have as strong a role in American society as they once did, they are still around. If you visit around the Christmas holiday when Santa Claus is stationed right in the center of the mall, it looks like things never even changed. Whether from its sheer size and over 500 stores, or from the attraction of just seeing it in person, the Mall of America in Minnesota, the largest mall in the US, is still thriving. The mall also has all sorts of attractions like an aquarium and a theme park. Shoppers really love their high-end malls, which you can learn about on this list of high end shopping malls in America. While large shopping malls aren’t really a big deal in Europe, they do have some places that come close, which you can see with this list of biggest outlet malls in Europe.
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Mall of America is massive, but the continent of Asia is looking to take claim as home to some of the biggest malls in the world. Not only is the South China Mall, the largest mall in Asia, it was also the biggest mall in the world 2016. However, much of the mall was a ghost town for many years, but the new South China Mall may be regaining life. India is also known for some pretty massive malls, and depending on the ranking criteria, India’s biggest mall is typically a competition between the Mall of India, Phoenix Market City, and the Lulu International Shopping Mall. Lulu international topped many lists for the title of the biggest mall in India 2017. Many of these malls offer hundreds of stores, restaurants, movie theaters and a long list of attractions to entice people to visit, so you see, it takes much more than just shopping to be so large. For a past list of biggest malls, check out this list of the 15 Biggest Malls in the World in 2015.
As the title suggests, we are looking for the biggest malls in the world in 2017, and by big, we mean shopping malls with the biggest GLA (gross leasable area) at their disposal. GLA represents the amount of floor space available to be rented in a commercial property. By definition, a mall will have a greater area than just GLA; you could ask why did we not go with that instead. The thing is, from the perspective of a shopper rampaging through a mall, blank or decorative spaces mean next to nothing, they want to visit as many shops as possible and find the best deals available. This is why we went with the gross leasable area, the more GLA a shopping mall has, theoretically, the more shops there are to explore.
When it comes to ranking the shopping malls, it was pretty straightforward. We ranked the shopping malls on our list based on their GLA. Of course, visiting each mall and getting accurate measurements was not an option for us. Therefore, we sought help from several reliable online sources for our research work, like the Emporis, Regio Data and the International Council of Shopping Centers. We also put Google’s trusty search engine through its paces as well.
Now with all that said and done, let’s get our list of 26 biggest malls in the world in 2017 started.
