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West Edmonton Mall is the most popular tourist attraction in the province of Alberta. It is the largest mall in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. West Edmonton Mall has a gross area of 500,000 m² (5.3 million ft²) and it cost CDN $1.2 billion to build. More than 800 stores and services are located on the two main floors, including 110 eating establishments. There are six anchor tenants ( department stores and junior department stores), in addition to six other major stores including The Brick , London Drugs , Sport Chek , Chapters Books, and Winners . Sears is located in the northeast corner, the Bay, in the east and Zellers in the southeast.
Galaxyland is an amusement park located near the centre of the mall; World Waterpark and WEM's Adventure Golf are located in the west end; and Ice Palace is directly in the centre. The mall has over 23,500 employees. There are large parking areas which together have more than 20,000 parking spaces, making it the world's largest parking lot. The mall is often called "the eighth wonder of the world" by international travel writers and receives 22 million visits per year.West Edmonton Mall first opened its doors to the public on September 15, 1981. The mall has been expanded three times since its opening in 1981, with these additions completed in 1983 (Phase II), 1985 (Phase III) and 1999 (Phase IV).
The mall's amusement park was originally called Fantasyland, until the Walt Disney Company took the mall to court, claiming ownership of the name which is used in its theme parks such as DisneylandDisneyland is a theme park at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is the world's most famous themed amusement park and one of the most visited sites in the world. The park's official name is "Disneyland," but to avoid confusion with the new overa. WEM lost the case and had to rename the attraction Galaxyland. However, the mall was allowed to retain the name "Fantasyland Hotel" for its on-site hotel.
A small portion of the mall was damaged on July 11July 11 is the 192nd day (193rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 173 days remaining. Events 1302 Battle of the Golden Spurs Guldensporenslag in Dutch) the Flemish cities beat the king of France. 1346 Charles IV of Luxembourg elec, 20042004 is a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 2004 calendar), and has also been designated the: International Year of Rice International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition Elections are to be held in 73 co when a severe storm of hailHail is a type of graupel (a form of precipitation) composed of balls or irregular lumps of ice. It occurs when supercooled water droplets (remaining in a liquid state despite being below the freezing point, 0 °C/32 °F) in a storm cloud collide with some and rainRain is a form of precipitation, as are snow, sleet, hail, and dew. Rain forms when separate drops of water fall to the Earth's surface from clouds. Not all rain reaches the surface, however; some evaporates while falling through dry air, a type of precip caused roofs to fail, drains to overflow and millions of dollars of damage, especially to the water park and surrounding sections. The damage has since been repaired.