they're some of the biggest and busiest places in the world in 2019 the last normal year they collectively handled over 60 million tons of freight and more than 4 billion people initially able to operate with just a few hangers and an airstrip the advent of jet engines saw things really take off and as passenger numbers grew so too did the air force today they're like many cities with massive terminals control towers multiple runways hotels shops car parks maintenance hangars logistics facilities and a staff of thousands to keep them moving such insane scale makes them difficult to really fathom so we've done a quick take off and compared them to easily relatable references to reveal their actual size fasten your seat belts open your window blinds and prepare to be amazed this is the true scale of the world's largest airports when it comes to airports most of us instinctively think of the terminals themselves once simple waiting areas they're now destinations in their own right and have become some of the largest buildings in the world places that many of us have spent hours wandering between connecting flights the biggest of these is the main terminal at turkey's new istanbul airport with 1. 4 million square meters under a single roof and terminal 3 at dubai international with 1. 7 million square meters spread across its three interconnected buildings that's 2.
3 and 2. 7 times the floor space at the pentagon respectively the size of a terminal is normally driven by an airport's capacity and that is all about its runways runway lengths vary but most tend to sit between 2. 4 and 3.
9 kilometers long one exception can be found here on the tibetan plateau in china in this case the reduced performance of engines at low air density and the greater speed needed for takeoff forced the little-known kamdu bandur airport to construct the world's longest runway stretching for a whopping 5. 5 kilometers that's longer than two golden gate bridges laid end to end but due to some extreme weathering that runway is now closed and has been replaced with a shorter one the title is now held by russia moscow's zakovsky international has a 5. 4 kilometer runway that's equivalent to the distance from rockefeller center over central park and into harlem alternatively you can think of it as 61 antonov an225s lined up wing to wing but while size is important it's what you do with it that really matters and the world's busiest airports aren't actually the largest atlanta's heartsville jackson was the world's busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic from 1998 until 2019 when it served over 110 million passengers equivalent to the entire population of the philippines but it lost the top spot to guangzhou's bayern international in 2020 due to the pandemic atlantis airport covers an area 39 times bigger than california's disneyland but that 19 square kilometers is kind of nothing it's seven times smaller than the biggest airport in the us denver international which is more than twice the size of manhattan it's the same story over at one of the world's busiest cargo airports after reclaiming nearly 10 square kilometers of land from the ocean in the 1990s the 12.
5 square kilometer hong kong international represented more than one percent of the city's entire landmass it was officially the world's busiest cargo airport from 2010 until 2020 when fedex's logistics super hub memphis international reclaimed the title helped by the huge growth in e-commerce what's even more impressive is that with a 6. 5 square kilometer land reclamation having just completed and with only 24 percent of hong kong's land built upon the airport represents a whopping 7. 16 percent of hong kong's entire built up area of course not every city has the luxury of being able to easily expand its airports and for some the answer is to have multiple sites all working in tandem london's a pretty clear example of this it has six commercial airports and together they processed over 180 million passengers in 2019 that's enough capacity to send every brit on an overseas holiday three times over spread out around greater london these airports cover a combined area of more than 30 square kilometers the equivalent of everything north of the thames from the isle of dogs up to stratford and as far west as hyde park for football fans that's 461 wembley stadiums but even the combined size of london's airports doesn't come close to the world's largest airport one that surprisingly only serves around 10 million passengers each year and that you've probably never heard of unless you're a fan of the guinness world records or pub trivia located in damam saudi arabia king fard international has an official area of over 776 square kilometers it's bigger than 23 sovereign states and if it was its own country it would rank 173rd in the world just ahead of neighbouring bahrain the airport actually got its enormous size during the gulf war when the u.
s and coalition forces used it and the surrounding area as a military base and storage facility until operations could be transferred to the ahmad al jaber air base in kuwait today a mere 36.
