A mall (or simply shopping mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, generally anchored in department stores. Victor Gruen developed the mall format in the mid-1950s, which required signing with department stores to ensure the financial stability of the projects and attract retail traffic, which would also result in visits to the mall's smaller stores. Shopping centers are buildings or complexes that contain two or more stores primarily used for retail sales, but may also include commercial or professional uses. These places are typically private developments with a parking area of more than 800,000 square feet and are commonly referred to as “malls” or “shopping centers”.
In Canadian English, and often in Australia and New Zealand, the term “mall” can be used informally, but the name of the complex will include “mall” or simply “center” (such as Toronto Eaton Centre). A commercial property management company is a company that specializes in owning and managing shopping centers, such as those found in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which are both outdoor and indoor malls commonly referred to as shopping malls. Based on the standard definition of sales for regional malls adopted by the International Council of Shopping Centers, which includes only malls and independent stores. Commercial developments outside UK cities are now focused on shopping parks, which consist of groups of warehouse-type stores with individual entrances from outside. The term mall originally meant a pedestrian walkway with stores along it (that is, the term was used to refer to the walkway itself that was simply bordered by those stores), but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generic term for large enclosed malls that were becoming commonplace at that time.
This is an incomplete list of the largest malls in the world based on their gross leasable area (SBA), with an SBA of at least 250,000 m2 (2,700,000 square feet). This information should not be considered complete, up to date and should not be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice from a legal, medical, or any other professional.
