Hi, everybody! It’s Samantha! From Asia’s super-sized shopping centers to the retail
districts that host ice rinks and amusement parks, these are the Most Amazing Malls in the World.
#14 The Galleria Located in Houston,
Texas, this shopping mecca of the Lone Star state attracts more than 24 million visitors per year as
a must-see tourist stop in the city. The Galleria is a 3 million square foot structure and hosts
over 400 stores and restaurants. This great mall is also home to a pair of high rise Westin Hotels,
two swimming pools, a top-of-the-line children’s play area, and even a full size ice rink!
#14 SM Megamall This massive mall
has been a top draw in the Philippines since its opening in 1991. Built upon a 25 acre lot of land,
the floor area of the mall measures out to an astounding 5.1 million square feet and can hold
up to 4 million shoppers at a time! But what could bring in that many customers to a shopping mall at
one time? Well, for starters, the SM Megamall sat atop the throne for nearly 17 years as the largest
mall in this Southeast Asian country. Boasting multiple buildings with between 5 and 11 floors
of shopping, this spectacle of the Philippines offers most anything your heart desires. The SM
Megamall is equipped with three different cinemas including an IMAX digital theater and a Director’s
Club Cinema with butler service, an Olympic-sized ice skating rink, a 14-lane bowling center,
multiple food courts, dozens of restaurants, a passport office, and even a bingo area!
#13 Siam Paragon While not quite the largest mall in
all of Thailand, the famed Siam Paragon is one of Bangkok’s most popular malls due to its exciting,
upscale offerings. The 2.5 million square foot building is characterized by its open design that
allows shoppers to see the upper and lower floors from anywhere within the shopping center. The Siam
Paragon has all the typical amenities of a large mall, but some of the featured attractions are
what makes this boutique-style mall stand out from the rest. A verdant hue blankets the walls of the
mall with the first vertical gardens in the world. It also features karaoke, a gourmet grocery store,
an art gallery, an opera hall, and the Siam Ocean World Aquarium. And for those who might spend too
much time in the food court, it even has a 40 thousand square foot gym called Fitness First.
#12 Westfield London Once a modest mall within White City,
London, this Westfield Group mall underwent a massive expansion in 2018 to make it the largest
shopping center in all of Europe. After millions of dollars in renovations and restructuring,
the newest incarnation of the mall is a mighty 2.6 million square feet large with parts of the
mall ranging from 4 to 20 stories high! One of the biggest factors contributing to this malls
popularity isn’t necessarily its size, though, as much as it owes to its location. When the
Westfield London mall first opened in 2008, it did so in conjunction with the completion of a number
of transport projects. Two London Underground stations, Wood Lane and Shepherd’s Bush,
surround the shopping center, while another two, White City and Shepherd’s Bush Market, aren’t
too much further away. The London Overground has a station just south of the mall as well,
and a number of road links, bus, taxi and cycle routes were all constructed nearby too!
#11 Mall of America Minnesota might be called the “Land
of 10,000 Lakes”, but it’s the world-famous Mall of America that attracts an average of
40 million visitors per year. It was built atop the same grounds as the once famed Metropolitan
Stadium in 1992 and has dominated as a must-see landmark in the United States ever since. Along
with the more than 500 retail shops occupying the mall’s 2.5 million square feet of leasable space,
this great monument hosts over 400 events a year on average, including fashion shows, concerts, and
celebrity appearances. Some of the other features that bring in crowds by the thousand are a massive
aquarium, a huge Lego store, the recently added Crayola Experience, a virtual reality sports
entertainment center, and the ever-popular Nickelodeon Universe theme park. But the Mall
of America doesn’t forget its roots either as a number of memorials can be found throughout the
mall commemoration the historic Metropolitan Stadium, once home to the Minnesota Twins.
#10 Berjaya Times Square Blending the future with the past,
Berjaya Times Square Mall in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur is truly an innovative commerce experience.
The shopping complex is just part of an overall massive pair of twin towers that collectively rank
as the tenth largest building in the world. This mall boasts more than a thousand retail stores and
65 dining establishments. Designed to model New York’s famed Fifth Avenue, entering the Berjaya
Times Square mall can be like stepping into a time machine with a retro form of the Big Apple
awaiting your arrival, armed with a replica subway station and all! But not one to be stuck in the
past, this mall also proudly dedicates an entire three floors to nothing but technology products.
In addition to the fun to be found within the mall portion of this great structure, visitors can
visit the indoor theme park as well and even stay in the buildings Berjaya Hotel. Many facilities
and services are also readily available at Berjaya Times Square, including a monorail station,
a bank, pharmacies, and even a police booth! #9 Tokyo Midtown
Known for featuring nearly any designer brand name you could think of throughout the 6.1 million
square foot mixed use structure, Tokyo Midtown provides one of the classiest shopping adventures
one could hope for. The building was completed in 2007 at the cost of three billion dollars
and along with its mall this tower offers guests hotel, residential and office accommodations. Only
five stories of the building are dedicated to shopping, but visitors will be remiss if
they don’t also check out features like Francis Ford Coppola’s Vinoteca, the Ritz Carlton Tokyo,
and fashion icon Issey Miyake’s Design Sight 21_21 gallery. All of these attractions, along
with more practical services like a John Hopkins medical center and the Fuji Xerox headquarters,
can be found within this great tower. #8 Okhotny Ryad
Built around the Moscow Metro station of the same name, this retail district is an underground dream
for visitors looking to spend their money. At just 675 thousand square feet in size, this location is
far from the largest mall on this list, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in wonder as the
layers of the mall delve deep beneath the surface. This subterranean shopping mall hosts three floors
of goods and services across 160 stores. Top brands, from Lacoste and Swarovski to Calvin Klein
and Nike, can be found throughout Okhotny Ryad, along with a full-size grocery supermarket and a
restaurant patio. And once done shopping, tourists are only a short walk away from other great
Russian landmarks like the Red Square, Alexander’s Garden, and Moscow’s famed Theatre Square.
#7 Ala Moana Center Vacationing in Hawaii’s capital city
of Honolulu is already a dreamy experience for most, but with a mall like the Ala Moana Center,
tourists of the tropical city are in for a treat. Thanks to the Aloha State’s excellent weather,
this commerce complex was constructed as the world’s largest open-air mall. Not only that,
but with the collective assets of the 2.4 million-square-foot retail space, the Ala Moana
Center is valued at 5.74 billion dollars making it the most valuable mall in America! This outdoor
establishment has expanded greatly since it first opened in 1959, yet remains a popular stop today
for tourists and locals alike. The Ala Moana Center boasts four floors packed with over 350
stores and more than 100 full service restaurants, keeping travelers occupied for hours before they
head back to enjoy Hawaii’s beautiful beaches. #6 Mall of Asia
One of the largest malls throughout the Philippines, the Mall of Asia is nearly
4.7 million square feet of fun attracting over 200 thousand shoppers a day! Split between four
buildings, visitors traverse back and forth between the Main Mall, Entertainment Mall,
and two parking complexes via walkways connecting the four. While the Main Mall contains all the
typical offerings one would expect from a mall, the Entertainment sector is a two-story open-air
building facing Manila Bay, granting a gorgeous, refreshing experience to guests. The Mall of Asia
keeps attendees entertained with a connected convention center, an indoor sports arena used
by the Philippine Basketball Association, an amusement park, concert grounds, a promenade,
and the Exploreum Science Center. This final feature offered a digital planetarium along with
dozens of tech and science themed exhibits, but it was closed suddenly in 2017. Plans to reopen
the science center are supposedly in motion as the Mall of Asia looks to expand even further.
#5 Villaggio Mall Walking this gorgeous mall
might have you convinced you’re wandering the canals of Venice, making it an essential stop
for anyone traveling through Qatar’s capital city, Doha. Two hundred stores featuring upscale brands
from across Western Europe and the United States fill the Villaggio Mall’s 1.3 million-square-foot
space. This luxury shopping experience is accompanied by a number of entertainment
attractions including a ten-pin bowling alley, a roller coaster, and an indoor theme park,
which is home to the Gondolania Ice Rink, host to the Qatar Ice Hockey League and the Desert Cup
tournament. Once a popular retail destination in the Middle East, a tragic fire in 2012 damaged the
mall and claimed the lives of 19 people and the Villaggio hasn’t fully recovered since. Today this
mall averages 1.5 million visitors monthly. #4 Mall of the Emirates
Self-described as not just a mall, but a “leisure, entertainment and shopping resort”,
this Dubai mall goes above and beyond the typical shopping experience. Over 600 stores
fill this 2.4 million-square-foot complex, along with a number of unique highlights
that can’t be found elsewhere. These include a 500-seat community theatre and arts center,
one of the biggest family-friendly entertainment centers in the city, and, perhaps most famously,
Ski Dubai. This latter attraction is the Middle East’s first indoor ski resort and snow park,
giving the otherwise desert-bound locals and tourists access to snowboarding and ski lessons in
a 25 story-tall structure. Five separate slopes, including the world’s first indoor black diamond
run, compose the 22,500 square foot resort. In addition to sporting activities, the frigid
temperature of Ski Dubai also allows for a small penguin population to live within the grounds for
visitors to interact with by paid appointment. #3 West Edmonton Mall
In the heart of Canada lies the West Edmonton Mall, a huge building that reigned for 23 years as
the largest mall in the world. It lost that title in 2004, but the great northern shopping complex
still attracts more than 32 million customers a year as the largest mall in North America. At
5.3 million square feet in size, the West Edmonton Mall is able to house 800 stores, has two hotels,
100 restaurants, and a parking lot able to fit more than 20 thousand vehicles. This mall also
features Galaxyland, the world’s second largest indoor amusement park and the World Waterpark,
the second largest indoor waterpark on Earth. And being a Canadian establishment, the West Edmonton
Mall also hosts the Mayfield Toyota Ice Palace, which is an NHL regulation-sized ice rink at the
center of the mall. Among these various features are dozens of other distinct attractions making
this mall a truly unique appeal. #2 Dubai Mall
Like most everything in the extravagant city of Dubai, this mall is a lavish structure with more
amenities than most cities. Part of the 20 billion dollar complex known as Downtown Dubai, the Dubai
Mall is one of the largest malls in the world with a spacious 13 million square feet in size...the
equivalent of 50 football fields! It’s grown to become the most visited landmark in the world,
drawing in 130 million shoppers in 2018 alone. In comparison, the world famous Times Square in New
York City only attracts around 50 million tourists annually. With 1,200 shops, 120 restaurants,
the world’s tallest manmade structure known as the Burj Khalifa, and the world’s largest candy store,
it’s no wonder that travelers from all over the world consider the Dubai Mall to be a mandatory
stop when in the United Arab Emirates. #1 New South China Mall
For over a decade, the New South China Mall was known for having incredible, yet unused,
potential. At 9.6 million square feet in size with more than 7 million square feet of leasable space,
this mall can host more stores than any other mall in the world...and yet up until recently,
it remained mostly vacant, despite opening in 2005 at a cost of 1.3 billion dollars. As of 2018,
though, most of this mall’s spaces are said to have been rented out,
attracting visitors with its shopping choices, indoor theme park, and IMAX cinema.
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