A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor

shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

, usually anchored by

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refer to the walkway itself which was merely bordered by such shops), but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generic term for the large enclosed shopping centers that were becoming commonplace at the time. In the U.K., such complexes are considered shopping centres (

Commonwealth English The use of the English language in current and former Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British Empire, British colonisation, with some exceptions. English s ...

: shopping centre), though "shopping center" covers many more sizes and types of centers than the North American "mall". Other countries may follow U.S. usage (

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

U.A.E. The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

, etc.) and others (Australia, etc.) follow U.K. usage. In Canadian English, and oftentimes in Australia and New Zealand, 'mall' may be used informally but 'shopping centre' or merely 'centre' will feature in the name of the complex (such as Toronto Eaton Centre). The term 'mall' is less-commonly a part of the name of the complex. Many malls have declined considerably in

Northern America Northern America is the northernmost subregion of North America. The boundaries may be drawn slightly differently. In one definition, it lies directly north of Middle America (including the Caribbean and Central America).Gonzalez, Joseph. 20 ...

, and some have closed and become so-called "

dead mall A dead mall (also known as a ghost mall, zombie mall, or abandoned mall) is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in North America are considered "dead ...

s". Successful exceptions have added entertainment and experiential features, added

big-box store A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The t ...

s as anchors, or converted to other specialized shopping center formats such as power centers, lifestyle centers, factory outlet centers, and festival marketplaces. In Canada, shopping centres have frequently been replaced with mixed-use highrise communities.

Types of shopping malls

The

International Council of Shopping Centers The International Council of Shopping Centers, doing business as ICSC, is the global trade association of what it calls the "Marketplaces Industry" (i.e., shopping centers, shopping malls, and all other retail real estate). Founded in 1957, it fe ...

classifies two types of shopping centers as malls: regional malls and superregional malls.

Regional mall

A regional mall is as per the International Council of Shopping Centers, in the United States, a shopping mall with to gross leasable area with at least two

anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

Super-regional mall

A super-regional mall is, per the

, in the US, a shopping mall with over of gross leasable area, three or more anchors, mass merchant, more variety, fashion apparel, and serves as the dominant shopping venue for the region () in which it is located.

Not malls

Not classified as malls are smaller formats such as strip malls and neighborhood shopping centers, and specialized format such as power centers, festival marketplaces, and

outlet center An outlet store, factory outlet or factory shop is a brick and mortar or online store in which manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public. Traditionally, a factory outlet was a store attached to a factory or warehouse, sometimes allowin ...

s. On the other hand, in some countries, many shopping centres less than half or a quarter of the size of the U.S. minimum to be considered a mall, , have "mall" in their names – see

List of shopping centres in Namibia This is a list of shopping centres in Namibia with at least two anchor tenants such as supermarkets, hypermarkets, multicinemas, and department stores. Modern shopping centres in Namibia are often called malls, even when they do not meet the defi ...

List of shopping centres in Zambia This is a list of shopping centres in Zambia with at least two anchor tenants such as supermarkets, hypermarkets, multicinemas, and department stores. Modern shopping centres are often called malls, even when they do not meet the definition of a m ...

for examples. The world's largest malls with over of gross leasable area are in China, Thailand, and the Philippines – more than half again as large as previous contenders such as the Dubai Mall.

List of types of shopping centers (including malls)

The

classifies Asia-Pacific, European, U.S., and Canadian shopping centers into the following types:"Asia Shopping-Centre Classification and Typical Characteristics", ICSC, accessed July 15, 2020
/ref> ''Abbreviations: SC=shopping center/centre, GLA = Gross Leasable Area, NLA = Net Leasable Area'', AP=Asia-Pacific, EU=Europe, Can=Canada, US=United States of America''
^*does not apply to Europe

History

Forerunners to the American mall

Shopping centers in general, may have their origins in public markets and, in the Middle East, covered

bazaar A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...

s. In 1798 the first covered shopping passage was built in Paris, the Passage du Caire. The Arcade in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

claims to be the first shopping arcade in the United States in 1828. Dayton Arcade Post Card

In the mid-20th century, with the rise of the

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

and

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

culture in the United States, a new style of shopping center was created away from

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

s. Early shopping centers designed for the automobile include

Market Square The market square (or sometimes, the market place) is a Town square, square meant for trading, in which a market is held. It is an important feature of many towns and cities around the world.Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest ...

(1916), and Country Club Plaza,

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

(1924). The suburban shopping center concept evolved further in the United States after World War II (see table above) with larger open-air shopping centers anchored by major department stores, such as the

Broadway-Crenshaw Center Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (alternately BHCP) is a shopping mall located in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. This was one of the first regional shopping centers in the United States built specifically for the automo ...

in Los Angeles built in 1947, anchored by a five-story Broadway and a

May Company California May Company California was a chain of department stores operating in Southern California and Nevada, with headquarters in North Hollywood, California. It was a subsidiary of May Department Stores and merged with May's other Southern California s ...

Downtown pedestrian malls and use of term ''mall''

In the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the term "shopping mall" was first used, but in the original sense of the word "mall", that is, a pedestrian promenade (in U.K. usage a "shopping precinct"). Early downtown pedestrianized malls included the

Kalamazoo Mall The Kalamazoo Mall, the first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States, is a section of Burdick Street in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan. Built for $60,000 and opened in 1959, the pedestrian mall became the first of several hundred bu ...

(the first, in 1959), "Shoppers' See-Way" in

Toledo Toledo most commonly refers to: * Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain * Province of Toledo, Spain * Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States Toledo may also refer to: Places Belize * Toledo District * Toledo Settlement Bolivia * Toledo, Orur ...

Lincoln Road Mall Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...

, Santa Monica Mall (1965). Although Bergen Mall (opened 1957) led other suburban shopping centers in using "mall" in their names, these types of properties were still referred to as "shopping centers" until the late 1960s, when the term "shopping mall" started to be used generically for large suburban shopping centers.

Enclosed malls

The enclosed shopping center, which would eventually be known as the shopping mall, did not appear until the mid-1950s. One of the earliest examples was the

Valley Fair Shopping Center The Valley Fair Shopping Center, Valley Fair Mall, or Valley Fair Center was a shopping mall in Appleton, in the U.S. state of Wisconsin that opened on March 10, 1955. The mall billed itself as the first enclosed mall in the United States.WGBA n ...

in Appleton, Wisconsin, which opened on March 10, 1955. Valley Fair featured a number of modern features including central heating and cooling, a large outdoor parking area, semi-detached anchor stores, and restaurants. Later that year the world's first fully enclosed shopping mall was opened in

Luleå Luleå ( , , locally ; smj, Luleju; fi, Luulaja) is a city on the coast of northern Sweden, and the capital of Norrbotten County, the northernmost county in Sweden. Luleå has 48,728 inhabitants in its urban core (2018) and is the seat of Lu ...

, in northern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

(architect: Ralph Erskine) and was named ''Shopping''; the region now claims the highest shopping center density in Europe. The idea of a regionally-sized, fully enclosed shopping complex was pioneered in 1956 by the Austrian-born architect and American immigrant Victor Gruen. This new generation of regional-size shopping centers began with the Gruen-designed Southdale Center, which opened in the

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

suburb of

Edina, Minnesota Edina ( ) is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States and a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. The population was 53,494 at the 2020 census, making it the 18th most populous city in Minnesota. Edina began as a small farming and mil ...

, United States in October 1956. For pioneering the soon-to-be enormously popular mall concept in this form, Gruen has been called the "most influential architect of the twentieth century" by Malcolm Gladwell. The first retail complex to be promoted as a "mall" was Paramus, New Jersey's Bergen Mall. The center, which opened with an open-air format on November 14, 1957 and was enclosed in 1973. Aside from Southdale Center, significant early enclosed shopping malls were Harundale Mall (1958) in Glen Burnie, Maryland,

Big Town Mall Big Town Mall was a shopping mall located in the Dallas, Texas, Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas. Built in 1959, it was the first enclosed shopping mall in the Southwest United States, Southwest. Its last anchor tenant (Montgomery Ward) closed in ...

(1959) in Mesquite, Texas,

Chris-Town Mall Christown Spectrum is the oldest operating mall in Phoenix, Arizona and was the third shopping mall built in the city. It is located at 1703 W. Bethany Home Road in Phoenix, Arizona. The name Christown Spectrum is derived from Chris-Town Mall an ...

(1961) in Phoenix, Arizona, and

Randhurst Center Randhurst Village, previously known as Randhurst Mall and Randhurst Center or simply Randhurst, is a shopping mall located at the corner of Rand Road (U.S. Route 12) and Elmhurst Road (Illinois Route 83) in Mount Prospect, Illinois. The mall took ...

(1962) in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Other early malls moved retailing away from the dense, commercial downtowns into the largely residential suburbs. This formula (enclosed space with stores attached, away from downtown, and accessible only by automobile) became a popular way to build retail across the world. Gruen himself came to abhor this effect of his new design; he decried the creation of enormous "land wasting seas of parking" and the spread of suburban sprawl. Even though malls mostly appeared in suburban areas in the U.S., some U.S. cities facilitated the construction of enclosed malls downtown as an effort to revive city centers and allow them to compete effectively with suburban malls. Examples included Main Place Mall in Buffalo (1969) and The Gallery (1977, now Fashion District Philadelphia) in Philadelphia. Other cities created open-air

pedestrian malls Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

. In the United States, developers such as

A. Alfred Taubman Adolph Alfred "Al" Taubman (January 31, 1924 – April 17, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was convicted in 2002 for a price-fixing scheme involving the top two auction houses in the United States. Backgro ...

of Taubman Centers extended the concept further in 1980, with

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...

tiles at the

Mall at Short Hills The Mall at Short Hills, also known as the Short Hills Mall, is a shopping mall located in the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey, United States. It is located west of Newark Airport and west of Manhattan, and is situated near both M ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, indoor fountains, and two levels allowing a shopper to make a circuit of all the stores. Taubman believed carpeting increased friction, slowing down customers, so it was removed. Fading daylight through glass panels was supplemented by gradually increased electric lighting, making it seem like the afternoon was lasting longer, which encouraged shoppers to linger.

Decline of shopping malls

Belz Factory Outlet Mall in Allen, Texas (Winston's) crop

In the United States, in the mid-1990s, malls were still being constructed at a rate of 140 a year. But in 2001, a

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

study found that underperforming and vacant malls, known as "greyfield" and "dead mall" estates, were an emerging problem. In 2007, a year before the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, no new malls were built in America, for the first time in 50 years. City Creek Center Mall in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, which opened in March 2012, was the first to be built since the recession. In recent years, the number of dead malls increased significantly in the early 21st century because the economic health of malls across the United States has been in decline, as identified by high vacancy rates. From 2006 to 2010, the percentage of malls that are considered to be "dying" by real estate experts (have a vacancy rate of at least 40%), unhealthy (20–40%), or in trouble (10–20%) all increased greatly, and these high vacancy rates only partially decreased from 2010 to 2014. In 2014, nearly 3% of all malls in the United States were considered to be "dying" (40% or higher vacancy rates) and nearly one-fifth of all malls had vacancy rates considered "troubling" (10% or higher). Some real estate experts say the "fundamental problem" is a glut of malls in many parts of the country creating a market that is "extremely over-retailed". Online shopping has also emerged as a competition to shopping malls. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, online shopping has accounted for an increasing share of total retail sales. In 2013, roughly 200 out of 1,300 malls across the United States were going out of business. To combat this trend, developers have converted malls into other uses including attractions such as parks, movie theaters, gyms, and even fishing lakes. In the United States, the 600,000 square foot Highland Mall will be a campus for Austin Community College. In

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, the So Ouest mall outside of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

was designed to resemble elegant,

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

-style apartments and includes of green space. The Australian mall company Westfield launched an online mall (and later a mobile app) with 150 stores, 3,000 brands and over 1 million products. The

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

also significantly impacted the retail industry. Government regulations temporarily closed malls, increased entrance controls, and imposed strict public sanitation requirements.

Mall design

Vertical malls

High land prices in populous cities have led to the concept of the "vertical mall", in which space allocated to retail is configured over a number of stories accessible by

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s and/or

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...

s (usually both) linking the different levels of the mall. The challenge of this type of mall is to overcome the natural tendency of shoppers to move horizontally and encourage shoppers to move upwards and downwards. The concept of a vertical mall was originally conceived in the late 1960s by the Mafco Company, former shopping center development division of Marshall Field & Co. The Water Tower Place skyscraper in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Illinois was built in 1975 by Urban Retail Properties. It contains a hotel, luxury condominiums, and office space and sits atop a block-long base containing an eight-level atrium-style retail mall that fronts on the Magnificent Mile. Vertical malls are common in densely populated conurbations in East and Southeast Asia. Hong Kong in particular has numerous examples such as

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

, Dragon Centre, Apm, Langham Place, ISQUARE, Hysan Place and The One. A vertical mall may also be built where the geography prevents building outward or there are other restrictions on construction, such as historical buildings or significant

archeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

. The

Darwin Shopping Centre The Darwin Shopping Centre is the main shopping centre in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, comprising approximately 17 per cent of the town centre's retail offer by leasable area. It was built by John Laing Developments in 1989 and refurbish ...

and associated malls in

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

, UK, are built on the side of a steep hill, around the former town walls; consequently the shopping center is split over seven floors vertically – two locations horizontally – connected by elevators, escalators and bridge walkways. Some establishments incorporate such designs into their layout, such as Shrewsbury's former

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

, split into four stories with multiple

mezzanines A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...

which featured medieval castle vaults – complete with arrowslits – in the basement dining rooms.

Components

Food court

A common feature of shopping malls is a

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...

: this typically consists of a number of

fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...

vendors of various types, surrounding a shared seating area.

Department stores

When the shopping mall format was developed by Victor Gruen in the mid-1950s, signing larger department stores was necessary for the financial stability of the projects, and to draw retail traffic that would result in visits to the smaller stores in the mall as well. These larger stores are termed

or draw tenant. In physical configuration, anchor stores are normally located as far from each other as possible to maximize the amount of traffic from one anchor to another.

Regional differences

"Mall" versus "shopping center/centre"

''Shopping mall'' is a term used predominantly in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and some other countries that follow U.S. usage (

, etc.) and others (Australia, etc.) follow U.K. usage. In the United States,

Persian Gulf countries The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. ...

, and India, the term ''shopping mall'' is usually applied to enclosed retail structures (and is generally abbreviated to simply ''mall''), while ''shopping center/centre'' usually refers to open-air retail complexes; both types of facilities usually have large parking lots, face major traffic arterials, and have few pedestrian connections to surrounding neighbourhoods.''Urban Geography: A Global Perspective'' Michael Pacione, (Routledge, Informa UK Ltd. 2001) . Outside of North America, "shopping precinct" and "shopping arcade" are also used. In

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, "shopping centre" is often used officially (as in Square One Shopping Centre), but conversationally, "mall" is mostly used.

Europe

There are a reported 222 malls in Europe. In 2014, these malls had combined sales of US$12.47 billion. This represented a 10% bump in revenues from the prior year.

U.K. and Ireland

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, both open-air and enclosed centers are commonly referred to as ''shopping centres''. ''Mall'' primarily refers to either a shopping mall – a place where a collection of shops all adjoin a pedestrian area – or an exclusively pedestrianized street that allows shoppers to walk without interference from vehicle traffic. The majority of British enclosed shopping centres, the equivalent of a U.S. mall, are located in city centres, usually found in old and historic shopping districts and surrounded by subsidiary open air shopping streets. Large examples include

West Quay Westquay (formerly WestQuay) is a shopping centre in Southampton, England. It has an area of of retail and leisure space and contains around 130 shops, including major retailers such as John Lewis and Partners, Marks and Spencer, Zara, Schuh, ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

; Manchester Arndale; Bullring Birmingham; Liverpool One; Trinity Leeds; Buchanan Galleries in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

; and Eldon Square in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

. In addition to the inner city shopping centres, large UK

conurbation A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ca ...

s will also have large out-of-town "regional malls" such as the Metrocentre in

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

;

Meadowhall Centre Meadowhall is an indoor shopping centre in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It lies north-east of Sheffield city centre, and from Rotherham town centre. It is the largest shopping centre in Yorkshire, and currently the eleventh-largest i ...

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

serving

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

; the Trafford Centre in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

;

White Rose Centre The White Rose Centre is a shopping centre in the Beeston area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It spans two floors and is near the M621 motorway. It takes its name from the White Rose of York, the traditional symbol of Yorkshire. Most ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

; the

Merry Hill Centre Merry Hill (formerly Westfield Merry Hill and The Merry Hill Shopping Centre) is a large shopping complex in Brierley Hill near Dudley, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several subsequent expansion and renovation projects ...

near Dudley; and Bluewater in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. These centres were built in the 1980s and 1990s, but planning regulations prohibit the construction of any more. Out-of-town shopping developments in the UK are now focused on retail parks, which consist of groups of warehouse style shops with individual entrances from outdoors. Planning policy prioritizes the development of existing town centres, although with patchy success.

Westfield London Westfield London is a large shopping centre in White City, west London, England, developed by the Westfield Group at a cost of £1.6bn, on a brownfield site formerly the home of the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. The site is bounded by the We ...

(

White City White City may refer to: Places Australia * White City, Perth, an amusement park on the Perth foreshore * White City railway station, a former railway station * White City Stadium (Sydney), a tennis centre in Sydney * White City FC, a football clu ...

) is the largest shopping centre in Europe.

Russia

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, on the other hand, a large number of new malls had been built near major cities, notably the MEGA malls such as Mega Belaya Dacha mall near

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. In large part they were financed by international investors and were popular with shoppers from the emerging middle class.

Management and legal issues

Shopping property management firms

A shopping property management firm is a company that specializes in owning and managing shopping malls. Most shopping property management firms own at least 20 malls. Some firms use a similar naming scheme for most of their malls; for example, Mills Corporation puts "Mills" in most of its mall names and

SM Prime Holdings SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (SMPH) is a Filipino integrated property developer and a public subsidiary of SM Investments Corporation. It was incorporated on January 6, 1994, to develop, conduct, operate and maintain the SM commercial shopping cent ...

of the

puts "SM" in all of its malls, as well as anchor stores such as The SM Store, SM Appliance Center, SM Hypermarket, SM Cinema, and SM Supermarket. In the UK,

The Mall Fund The Mall Fund owns and operates shopping centres in England using the trading name "The Mall Company". The shopping centres are usually branded and marketed as "the mall". The Mall Fund owned up to 10% of the covered retail space in the United Ki ...

changes the name of any center it buys to ''"The Mall (location)"'', using its pink-M logo; when it sells a mall the center reverts to its own name and branding, such as

the Ashley Centre The Ashley Centre (for a brief period rebranded The Mall Ashley) is a shopping centre, in Epsom, Surrey. The Ashley Centre was opened on 24 October 1984 by Queen Elizabeth II as The Ashley Centre, a development combined of shops, a multi-storey ...

in Epsom. Similarly, following its rebranding from Capital Shopping Centres, intu Properties renamed many of its centres to ''"intu (name/location)"'' (such as

intu Lakeside Lakeside Shopping Centre, is a large out-of-town shopping centre located in West Thurrock, Essex just beyond the eastern boundary of Greater London. It was constructed on the site of a former chalk quarry. The first tenants moved into the compl ...

); again, malls removed from the network revert to their own brand (see for instance

The Glades in Bromley The Glades is a shopping centre in Bromley, England. It has a total of 135 stores trading from a combined floorspace of . Opened as The Glades on Tuesday 22 October 1991, the centre is currently jointly owned by Alaska Permanent Fund (85%) and ...

Legal issues

One controversial aspect of malls has been their effective displacement of traditional main streets or high streets. Some consumers prefer malls, with their parking garages, controlled environments, and private

security guard A security guard (also known as a security inspector, security officer, or protective agent) is a person employed by a government or private party to protect the employing party's assets (property, people, equipment, money, etc.) from a variety ...

s, over

Central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

s (CBD) or

s, which frequently have limited parking, poor maintenance, outdoor weather, and limited

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

coverage. In response, a few jurisdictions, notably

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, have expanded the right of

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

to ensure that speakers will be able to reach consumers who prefer to shop, eat, and socialize within the boundaries of privately owned malls. The Supreme Court decision ''

Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins ''Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins'', 447 U.S. 74 (1980), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on June 9, 1980 which affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court in a case that arose out of a free speech dispute between the Pruneya ...

'' was issued on 9 June 1980 which affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court in a case that arose out of a free speech dispute between the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, California, and several local high school students.

World's largest malls

This is an incomplete list of the world's largest shopping malls based on their gross leasable area (GLA), with a GLA of at least .

Combination retail and wholesale shopping malls

Some wholesale market complexes also function as shopping malls in that they contain retail space which operate as stores in normal malls do but also act as producer vendor outlets that can take large orders for export.

Gallery

File:Interior Shopping Abasto.jpg,

Abasto de Buenos Aires The Abasto Shopping is one of the biggest shopping mall centers in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The building was the central wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the city ("Mercado de Abasto") from 1893 to 1984. Since 1999, it has served as a shop ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

File:Buenos Aires - Galerías Pacífico - 200808a.jpg,

Galerías Pacífico Galerías Pacífico is a shopping centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located at the intersection of Florida Street and Córdoba Avenue. Overview The Beaux Arts building was designed by the architects Emilio Agrelo and Roland Le Vacher in 1889 to ...

File:Chadstone Shopping Centre interior pano 2017.jpg, Chadstone Shopping Centre

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

File:Scs bürocenter.jpg, Shopping City Süd

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

File:Jamuna Future Park exterior.jpg,

Jamuna Future Park Jamuna Future Park is a shopping mall in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was inaugurated on 6 September 2013. Construction began in 2002, by Jamuna Builders Ltd., a subsidiary of the Jamuna Group and the exterior was completed in 2008. It has a total floor ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

File:Bashundhara city.JPG, Bashundhara City

File:Iguatemi 3.JPG,

Iguatemi Fortaleza Shopping Iguatemi is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul () is one of the Midwestern states of Brazil. Neighboring Brazilian states are (from north clockwise) Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São P ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

File:Riomar Recife 2.jpg,

Riomar Recife Riomar is ''locality'' in the north of Barranquilla city, Colombia. It gets its name from its proximity with the Caribbean Sea and the Magdalena River The Magdalena River ( es, Río Magdalena, ; less commonly ) is the main river of Colombia, fl ...

File:Paradise Center.jpg,

Paradise Center Paradise Center in Sofia, Bulgaria is the largest mall in Bulgaria. It opened doors on 28 March 2013.http://stroitelstvo.info/show.php?storyid=2033178 "Парадайс мол" вече работи The main investors are Bulfeld, Sofia and cons ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

File:Eatoncentrertorontohall.JPG, Toronto Eaton Centre

File:West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta (22094236672).jpg, West Edmonton Mall

File:Mall de Costanera Center.JPG, Costanera Center

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

File:NewSouthChinaMall-SPAR.jpg,

South China Mall South China Mall () in Dongguan, China (formerly New South China Mall) is the largest shopping mall in the world when measured in terms of gross leasable area, and third in terms of total area to after Iran Mall (which has extensive non-shopping ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

File:New Century Global Center.jpg,

New Century Global Center New Century Global Center () is a multipurpose building in the Tianfu New Area of Chengdu, Sichuan, China and is the world's largest building in terms of floor area. It is served by Line 1 of the Chengdu Metro. Size The 100 meter (328 feet) tal ...

File:Santafe Mall in north Bogota.jpg,

Centro Comercial Santafé The Centro Comercial Santafé ( en, Santafé Shopping Center) is a mall located in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the fourth largest shopping mall in Colombia (the largest is Centro Mayor in Bogotá), and the fifth in Latin America, surpassed by Leste ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

File:07-06-21-tallinn-by-RalfR-114.jpg, Viru Keskus

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

File:Ideapark mall lempaala finland.jpg, Ideapark

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

File:Night view of Phoenix market city.jpg, Phoenix Marketcity

File:Indonesia-Korea_Culture_Exchange_2010_Ceramic_Show.JPG, Gandaria City

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

File:Mall_Taman_Anggrek_LED_Illuminated_Facade.jpg, Mal Taman Anggrek

File:Tunjungan_Plaza_23_June_2019.jpg, Tunjungan Plaza

File:Sunway Pyramid front.jpg,

Sunway Pyramid Sunway Pyramid is a shopping mall located in Bandar Sunway, Subang Jaya, Selangor which was developed by Sunway Group. History The shopping mall was opened in July 1997. It underwent expansions in 2007 and then later again in 2015. Architecture ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

File:Full aerial view of AEON Bukit Tinggi.jpg, AEON Bukit Tinggi Shopping Centre
Malaysia File:Artz Pedegral2.jpg,

Artz Pedregal Artz Pedregal is a mixed-use development opened on March 9, 2018 and is located along the Anillo Periférico ring road in the Pedregal de San Ángel area of southwestern Mexico City. The shopping mall focuses on luxury retailers. The project is ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

File:Centro Santa Fe.jpg,

Centro Santa Fe Centro Santa Fe (English: Santa Fe Center or Santa Fe Mall), often incorrectly named "Centro Comercial Santa Fe", is a large enclosed shopping mall in the Santa Fe area of Cuajimalpa, Mexico City. Centro Santa Fe is the largest shopping cente ...

Mexico File:Le Morocco Mall ouvre ses portes à Casablanca (6555301965).jpg, Morocco Mall
Morocco File: File:Lucky One Mall.jpg, Lucky One Mall

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

File:Emporium Mall.jpg,

Emporium Mall Emporium Mall ( ur, ) is a shopping mall located in Johar Town, Lahore southwest of Lahore International Expo Centre. The 11-storey mall is spread over 2.7 million square feet and is home to over 200 stores and a five-star hotel. Opened in 2016 ...

Pakistan File:MEGA3.jpg,

MEGA Family Shopping Centre MEGA shopping centres are managed and operated by IKEA Centres Russia, part of the IKEA Group. MEGA provides about 1.735 million sqm of retail space, and more than half of its tenants are represented by international retailers. There are a total ...

Russia File:VivoCity 19.JPG, VivoCity

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

File:Northpoint City.jpg,

Northpoint City Northpoint City, formerly known as Northpoint Shopping Centre, is a suburban shopping mall in Yishun, Singapore. Located opposite Yishun MRT station, the mall houses the Nee Soon Central Community Club, Yishun Public Library as well as the Yishu ...

File:Canal-Walk-Food-Court.jpg,

Canal Walk Canal Walk is a shopping centre located in Cape Town, South Africa. It is largest shopping centre in the city. Built in what the developers call "Cape Venetian architecture", the shopping centre hosts over 400 stores, 7,000 parking bays, numero ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

File:Mall of Scandinavia November 2015 03.jpg,

Mall of Scandinavia Westfield Mall of Scandinavia is a shopping mall located in Solna in Stockholm, Sweden. It was inaugurated on November 12, 2015, and is the second largest mall in the Nordic countries with 224 stores, many of them with double-height storefront ...

File:統一夢時代購物中心.JPG, Dream Mall
Taiwan File:CentralWorld-Dec2006.jpg, CentralWorld

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

File:Siam Paragon New.jpg, Siam Paragon

File:Dubai Mall Under Construction on 27 November 2007.jpg, Dubai Mall

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

File:Mall of the Emirates (3679338750).jpg,

Mall of the Emirates Mall of the Emirates ( ar, مول الإمارات) is a shopping mall in Dubai. Developed and owned by Majid Al Futtaim Group, it opened in November 2005 and is located at interchange four on Sheikh Zayed Road. The multi-level shopping mall cur ...

United Arab Emirates File:Entrance to Barton Square, Trafford Centre.JPG, Trafford Centre
United Kingdom File:Leisure Terrace, Liverpool ONE.jpg, Liverpool One
United Kingdom File:Destiny USA.png,

Destiny USA Destiny USA (stylized as destiny usa and also known by its former name Carousel Center) is a six-story, automobile-oriented super-regional shopping, dining, and entertainment complex on the shore of Onondaga Lake in the city of Syracuse, New York ...

United States File:GalleriaOne.jpg,

Houston Galleria The Galleria, stylized theGalleria and also known as the Houston Galleria, is an upscale mixed-use urban development and shopping mall located in the Uptown Houston, Uptown District of Houston, Texas, United States.Sambil
Venezuela File:Iran Mall Mahan Garden and Hotel.jpg,

Iran Mall The Iran Mall ( fa, ایران مال) is the biggest shopping mall in the world in terms of area, and one of the largest commercial, cultural and social projects in the world, located in northwest Tehran, Iran, by Chitgar Lake. The multi-purpose ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

References

External links

International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

American Institute of Architects Retail and Entertainment Committee Knowledge Community
{{Authority control Planned commercial developments Retail buildings Urban studies and planning terminology Shopping malls Economy-related lists of superlatives 1980s fads and trends 1990s fads and trends Architecture records Articles containing video clips