–FILE–View of the New Century Globle Center in Chengdu city, southwest Chinas Sichuan province, 6 June 2013.
Located in Chengdu, a city with 14 million of population and also capital of Sichuan province in southwestern China, the New Century Global Center is the largest freestanding building in the world, Chinese officials say. Though the words worlds largest usually bring to mind an image of a towering skyscraper, this project actually is not all that tall. But it is certainly big. At 500 meters long, 400 meters wide and 100 meters high, the 1.7-million-square-meter mega-structure is capable of housing 20 Sydney Opera Houses and almost three times the size of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The Global Center, which opened June 28, is home to business offices, hotels, theaters, shopping malls, a faux Mediterranean village and family-themed attractions such as a water park called Paradise Island. The New Century Global Center is located in an entirely new planned area of Chengdu called Tainfu New District.