Dubai: First Look at the World's Largest Shopping Mall

Almost two years after Dubai's ruler announced plans to build the World's biggest shopping mall, the Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has unveiled the first images of the project.

The shopping centre, which will take up eight million square foot in Mohammed bin Rashid City, will be known as the Mall of the World and feature a public park 30% larger than London's Hyde Park, as well as art galleries and 100 hotels.

Billed as the first "temperature-controlled, pedestrian city" the development is expected to attract an estimated 180 million shoppers a year.

"The growth in family and retail tourism underpins the need to enhance Dubai's tourism infrastructure as soon as possible," Sheik Mohammed said.

He insisted that the city had revived its vision of transforming Dubai into "a cultural, tourist and economic hub for the two billion people".

Dubai Holding, which is developing the complex, gave no details on its cost or completion date.

It will also feature theatres modelled on New York's Broadway, shopping thoroughfares based on London's Oxford Street and a "wellness district" for medical tourists.

The "Mall of the World" will be situated near the Mall of the Emirates, which boasts an indoor ski slope and the world's tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa.