New South China Mall in Dongguan, China is the largest shopping mall in the world when measured in terms of gross leasable area, and second in terms of total area to The Dubai Mall (which has extensive non-shopping space including a zoo, a hotel complex and a theme park).
South China Mall opened in 2005 and for more than 10 years it was mostly vacant as few merchants ever signed up, leading it to be dubbed a dead mall. In 2015 a CNN story reported that the mall had begun to attract tenants after extensive renovations and remodeling, though large portions still remained vacant.
According to another article published in January 2018, after more than a decade of high vacancy, most retail spaces had been filled and the mall featured an IMAX-style cinema and theme park.
The mall was built on former farmlands in the Wanjiang District of Dongguan in southern coastal China. The project was spearheaded by Hu Guirong (Alex Hu), who became a billionaire in the instant noodle industry. Upon opening, South China Mall became the largest mall in the world, surpassing the Golden Resources Mall. The cost of its construction is estimated around $1.3 billion.
The mall was owned by Dongguan Sanyuan Yinghui Investment & Development, Hu Guirong's company, but a controlling interest in the mall was later sold to Founder Group, a division of Peking University.
Its total area is 892,000 square metres (9,600,000 sq ft), with almost 660,000 square metres (7,100,000 sq ft) of leasable space sufficient for as many as 2,350 stores.
The mall has seven zones modeled on international cities, nations and regions, including Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Egypt, the Caribbean, and California. Features include a 25-metre (82 ft) replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice's St Mark's bell tower, a 2.1-kilometre (1.3 mi) canal with gondolas, and a 553-metre (1,814 ft) indoor-outdoor roller coaster.
According to en.wikipedia
