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In most of the world the term shopping centre is used, especially in Europe and Australasia; however shopping mall is also
used, predominantly in North America. Shopping precinct and shopping arcade are also used. In North America, the term
shopping mall is usually applied to enclosed retail structures (and may be abbreviated to simply mall) while shopping centre usually refers to open-air retail complexes.[citation needed]

Malls in Ireland, pronounced "maills", are very small shopping centres placed in the centre of town. They average about
twenty years in age, with a mix of local shops and chain stores. These malls do not have shops found in the high street or
modern shopping centres.

Shopping centres in the United Kingdom can be referred to as "shopping centres", "shopping precincts", or just "precincts",
but with American-style centres becoming more common in the UK, the term mall is gradually growing in use, at least among
the younger generation.


History

The Iguatemi São Paulo shopping centre is the oldest Brazilian mall.
The great Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg, 1802.
An example of the mid-19th century arcade: The Passage in St Petersburg.
Forum Bornova Open-Air Shopping Center in İzmir, TurkeyIsfahan's Grand Bazaar, which is largely covered, dates from the
10th century A.D. The 10 kilometer long covered Tehran's Grand Bazaar also has a long history. The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul
was built in the 15th century and is still one of the largest covered markets in the world, with more than 58 streets and
4000 shops.

Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg, which opened in 1785, may be regarded as one of the first purposely-built shopping malls,
as it consisted of more than 100 shops covering an area of over 53,000 m².

The Oxford Covered Market in Oxford, England opened in 1774 and still runs today.

The Burlington Arcade in London was opened in 1819. The Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island introduced the concept to the
United States in 1828. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy followed in the 1860s and is closer to large
modern malls in spaciousness. Other large cities created arcades and shopping centres in the late 19th century and early
20th century, including the Cleveland Arcade and Moscow's GUM in 1890. Early shopping centers designed for the automobile
include Market Square, Lake Forest, Illinois (1916) and Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri (1924).

An early indoor mall in the United States was the Lake View Store at Morgan Park, Duluth, Minnesota, which was built in
1915 and held its grand opening on July 20, 1916. The architect was Dean and Dean from Chicago and the building contractor
was George H. Lounsberry from Duluth. The building is two-stories with a full basement and shops were originally located
on all three levels. All of the stores were located within the interior of the mall with some shops being accessible from
both inside and out.

In the mid-20th century, with the rise of the suburb and automobile culture in the United States, a new style of shopping
centre was created away from downtown.


Early shopping centers
An early shopping center in the United States was Country Club Plaza, which opened in 1924 in Kansas City, Missouri. Other
important shopping centers built in the 1920s and early 1930s are the Highland Park Village in Dallas, Texas; River Oaks in
Houston, Texas; and Park and Shop in Washington, DC.

However, the concept of the fully-enclosed shopping mall did not appear until the 1950s. The idea was pioneered by the
Austrian-born architect and American immigrant Victor Gruen. This new generation, that were eventually called malls,
included Northgate Mall, built in north Seattle, Washington, USA in 1950, Victor Gruen's Northland Shopping Center built
near Detroit, Michigan, USA in 1954, and Gulfgate Mall in Houston were all originally open-air pedestrian shopping centers
that later were enclosed as malls. The first enclosed, postwar shopping center (or mall) was the Gruen-designed Southdale
Center, which opened in the Twin Cities suburb of Edina, Minnesota, USA in 1956. These malls moved retailing away from the
dense, commercial downtown 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. In the UK, Chrisp
Street Market was the first pedestrian shopping area built with a road at the shop fronts.

The Bergen Mall, the oldest enclosed mall in New Jersey, opened in Paramus on November 14, 1957, with Dave Garroway,
host of The Today Show, serving as master of ceremonies. The mall, located just outside New York City, was planned in
1955 by Allied Stores to have 100 stores and 8,600 parking spaces in a 1.5 million ft² mall that would include a 300,000
ft² Stern's store and two other 150,000 ft² department stores as part of the design. Allied's chairman B. Earl Puckett
confidently announced the Bergen Mall as the largest of ten proposed centers, stating that there were 25 cities that could
support such centers and that no more than 50 malls of this type would ever be built nationwide.


Largest shopping malls

"Centre Commercial Al Qods" in Algiers, the largest shopping mall of AfricaTwo of the largest malls are in China,
South China Mall and Jin Yuan. Dubai Mall is the largest mall in Middle East and Europe, currently ranked seventh in the
world. Previously, the title of the largest enclosed shopping mall was with the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada from 1986–2004. It is now the fifth largest mall.

Beijing's (Peking) Golden Resources Mall, which opened in October 2004, is the world's second largest mall, at 600,000 m²
(approximately 6 million square ft). Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is advertised at 700,000 square metres
(7,530,000 sq ft). SM City North EDSA in the Philippines, which opened in November 1985, is the world's third largest at 460,000 square metres (4,951,400 sq ft) of gross floor area, and SM Mall of Asia in the Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the world's fourth largest at 386,000 square metres (4,154,900 sq ft) of gross floor area.

One of the world's largest shopping complexes in one location is the two-mall agglomeration of the Plaza at King of Prussia
and the Court at King of Prussia in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States. The King of
Prussia mall has the most shopping per square foot in the U.S.

The most visited shopping mall in the world and largest mall in the United States is the Mall of America, located near the
Twin Cities in Bloomington, Minnesota. However, several Asian malls are advertised as having more visitors, including Mal
Taman Anggrek, Kelapa Gading Mall and Megamal Pluit, all in Jakarta-Indonesia, Berjaya Times Square in Malaysia and SM
Megamall in the Philippines. The largest mall in South Asia, and twelfth largest in the world, is Bashundhara City in
Dhaka, Bangladesh.