You thought your local mall is big? Pah! Having took 3 years to build, the New Century Global Center in China recently opened up to the public and already dubbed it “world’s largest building”. And when China say largest, they mean LARGEST. The NCGC is 19 million square feet, which is big enough to hold 3 Pentagons.

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The Beautiful Entranceway and Building

So what in the world do they do with all that space?  Well, to be exact, they use it to make the best, most awesome building ever. First of all, they have a 4,305,564.17 square feet shopping mall with various shops and boutiques. A shoppers dream. And they do it in style, to. The building was inspired by waves of the ocean and flying sea-gulls, so the shopping mall and lobby take on a Mediterranean theme.

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The Mall

Going along with the “waves of the sea” inspiration, the middle section of the building is a incredible water park. The park is surrounded by a glass dome, but even in that, the managed to fit a 100 ft long artificial coastline, water slides and a fake Mediterranean Village/hotel. This certainly adds “amusement” to NCGC’s giant resumè.

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The Fake Beach

I could go on forever naming things the NCGC has in it, like a ice rink or a theater (which it does have), I would like to move on to the second and only other building in the NCGC complex (does not count in biggest building ranking), the Chengdu Contemporary Arts Centre. The CCAC is, really, a giant modern art museum, complete with a theatre that holds 2,000 people, another stage that holds 1,000 people, and a multipurpose auditorium which holds 1,000 people. World-renowned shows and performances will take place there all year, so that the CCAC can really complete your visit for anyone who likes that arts.

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The Finished Product

Overall, the New Century Global Center really shows that if we want to build big and grand we can. I mean, seriously, this thing even has it’s own artificial sun! But, money and tourism aren’t the only reasons they built paradise so big. Part of it is pollution. They need a way to distract tourists and get out of the heavily polluted air. It’s a step, and in this case and really BIG step.