The biggest building in the world has opened in China and it’s long enough to fit 500 football fields lined up end zone to end zone.
The gleaming New Century Global Center in the metropolis of Chengdu encompasses more than 5.6 million square feet, is big enough to fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses under its roof, and even
has its own man-made seaside, according to The Guardian.
A video from Chengdu states the New Century Global Centre is “a fruitful success representative of our effort devoted to transforming Chengdu to a world class modern city of idyllic beauty.”
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Wrote Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian: “On entering the echoing 18-story atrium, lined with a stratified cream cake of hotel balconies and zig-zagging escalators, visitors are blasted with artificial sea breeze, designed to ‘make one intoxicated, as if he were enjoying himself in the fabulous heaven.’”
The building will house movie theaters, shopping centers (plural), office space, hotels, a water park complete with an artificial beach, and
even a replica Mediterranean village, among other things, wrote The Telegraph.
No word yet on occupancy rates.
For the record, the largest building in America, when measured by floor area, is the Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Wash., which stands at 4.3 million square feet. A Target Import Warehouse in Lacy, Wash., has about 2 million square feet.
The New Century Global Center is tiny, though, when compared to the tallest buildings in the world. That list is headed by the 163-story Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which was built in 2010. The tallest building in China is the 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center, which was built in 2008. One World Trade Center, which opened this year in New York, is the tallest building in the United States at 104 floors. That is now the third tallest building in the world.
The New Century Global Center tops out at 328 feet.
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in southwestern China, and is home to more than 7 million people.
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