Underground Mall

An underground city is a series of linked subterranean spaces that may provide a defensive refuge; a place for living, working or shopping; a transit system; mausolea; wine or storage cellars; cisterns or drainage channels; or several of these. Underground cities may be currently active modern creations or they may be historic including ancient sites, some of which may be all or partially open to the public.

The term may also refer to a network of tunnels that connects buildings beneath street level that may house office blocks, shopping malls, metro stations, theatres, and other attractions. These passages can usually be accessed through the public space of any of the buildings connecting to them, and sometimes have separate entries as well. This latter definition encompasses many modern structures, whereas the former more generally covers tunnel systems from ancient times to the present day.

Underground cities are especially functional in cities with very cold or hot climates, because they permit activities to be comfortably accessible year round without regard to the weather. Underground cities are similar in nature to skyway systems and may include some buildings linked by skyways or above-ground corridors rather than underground.

Some cities also have tunnels that have been abandoned.

Argentina

Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, has an extensive number of underground cities in its Subte. Most stations have small shops, bars and kiosks, while main hubs interconnect through underground pedestrian walkways with railroad stations, governmental buildings, or shopping centres. Some have additional mall-like mezzanine levels, with the Centro Obelisk of Buenos Aires area (three lines, four underground levels), Estación Retiro, Estación Constitución, Estación Once, and Federico Lacroze railway station being the most important ones.

Australia

Sydney has a series of underground shopping malls around the Town Hall underground station. The tunnels run south to the George Street cinema district, west under the town hall, and north to Pitt Street Mall through the Queen Victoria Building. The northern branch links Queen Victoria Building with Galleries Victoria, Sydney Central Plaza (which in turn links underground to Westfield Sydney and internally above ground to Centrepoint, Imperial Arcade, Skygarden, Glasshouse and 25 Martin Place). The linked centres run for over . In 2005, Westfield Corporation submitted a development application to link Sydney Central Plaza underground with 3 other properties on Pitt Street Mall and extend the tunnel network by a further or more.

Perth has a small network of underground shopping malls running from the St Georges Terrace entrance to Trinity Arcade to Murray Street Mall.

The small town of Coober Pedy in northern South Australia has numerous underground residences and other facilities. The area was and is extensively mined for opal, and the settlers lived underground to escape the scorching daytime heat, often exceeding .

Canada

The cold-winter northern continental climate of much of Canada makes underground pedestrian malls particularly useful in many cities.

*Edmonton, Alberta, has a small system of tunnels and above-ground skyways called the Pedway connecting buildings and LRT stations of the downtown core.
* Halifax, Nova Scotia (''Downtown Halifax Link''), where no point is more than 10 minutes casual walking distance from any other one.
*Montreal, Quebec, ''Underground city'', or ''la ville souterraine'' in French, is the largest underground network in the world. Its of tunnel cover more than 41 city blocks (about ). Access through the RÉSO can be made to apartment buildings, hotels, offices, banks, and universities, as well as public spaces like retail shops and malls, concert halls, cinemas, the Bell Centre hockey arena, museums, seven metro stations, two train stations ( Lucien-L'Allier and Gare Centrale), a bus terminal (Réseau de transport de Longueuil and other transit authorities), and other areas. It connects 80% of office space and 35% of commercial space in downtown Montreal.
**The network began as a connection between Place Ville Marie, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the Gare Centrale.
**More than 2,000 shops and 40 cinemas line the passageways. Tourists often visit attractions in the underground city, which is used by an average of half a million Montrealers per day.
**Eight metro stations link to smaller networks that are not yet part of the central network, such as Berri UQAM in the eastern part of downtown and Pie-IX which links venues from the 1976 Summer Olympics.
*Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, has a tunnel network which connects ten residence buildings with other buildings on its main campus. The city also has an underground concourse at the Place de Ville office complex in the downtown business district, connecting 4 office buildings containing over of leasable space, and 2 hotels with 900 rooms combined. There are plans to expand the underground network after the Confederation Line, a rapid transit line featuring three downtown subway stations, is completed. It is estimated there will be as many as 20 buildings with direct indoor connections to the downtown subway portion, or 4 million square feet of office space, of retail, 1400 hotel rooms and the Ottawa Convention Centre.
*Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – On the campus of the University of Saskatchewan a tunnel system connects several of the buildings on campus, this is augmented with overhead walkways that further extend the network.
* St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador – At the main campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland are the MUNnels, a tunnel system, in which all the main buildings are connected, though there are also some elevated walkways.
*Toronto, Ontario ("PATH"), comprises of walkways and 1,200 shops. It links many important buildings and attractions downtown to six TTC subway stations. PATH accommodates 100,000 pedestrians daily, and PATH businesses host the world's largest underground sidewalk sale once annually.
**The PATH network in Toronto is the largest underground shopping complex in the world with .
**Toronto also has a separate, smaller "underground city" connecting several building complexes and two subway stations on Bloor Street.
*Vancouver, British Columbia, has two shopping malls, Pacific Centre and Vancouver Centre, that are interconnected and extend over three city blocks, containing more than 200 stores that weaves above and below ground level. These malls have metro access at Granville SkyTrain Station on the Expo Line and Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain Station on the Canada Line. There are also restricted tunnels and parking garage connections connecting the Pacific Centre structure to Robson Square and the Courthouse building. Other connections exist between SkyTrain stations and surrounding buildings such is the case with the Burrard Station connections to the Bentall Centre and the Royal Centre and Waterfront Station's links with Canada Place and the Sinclair Centre.
*Winnipeg, Manitoba, has a smaller (mainly commercial office) area located underground in the downtown core below Portage and Main. Several of the downtown office towers have subterranean entrances to the complex allowing employees and visitors to bypass the downtown traffic and avoid the cold winter temperatures Winnipeg regularly experiences. The system links with the skyway system known as the Winnipeg Walkway. Also the University of Manitoba

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