China Claims Another Superlative with Chengu Indoor Resort Complex
By wchung | 09 Sep, 2025

To say that the world’s biggest building by square footage is now in Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan Province, wouldn’t do justice to what may well be the most awe-inspiring commercial structure ever built.

The 19-million-square-foot New Century Global Center (NCGC) which opened June 28 is big enough to fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses, 3 Pentagons or 4 St Peter’s Squares. What’s truly impressive about the Center is what it contains: its own 24-hour-a-day artificial sun intense enough to warm its own indoor beach, complete with white sand, and a fully functioning replica of an actual Mediterranean village. It also encloses two 5-star, 1,000-room hotels, offices, an ice rink, theaters and of course, plenty of shops.

The blue, wave-shaped building is the piece-du-resistance of Tainfu New District on the outskirts of Chengdu. To make sure that the NCGC won’t become stranded like a beached blue whale, just across the street will be another mega-complex dubbed the Chengdu Contemporary Arts Center. It will be a bit more cultural, featuring an opera house, a theater for stage performances and a museum.

The city of 14 million hopes that these two mega-structures will help put it on the map of global tourists eager to see the epic scale on which new China is being built. And Chengdu ranks only third in GDP among China’s sub-provincial cities, behind Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The NCGC may be an appropriate update for the city once known as Kublai Khan’s Xanadu.