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The title of the "world's largest palace" is difficult to award, and controversial, as different countries use different standards to claim that their palace is the largest in the world.
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Palaces considered the largest
The title of "world's largest palace by area enclosed within the palace's fortified walls" is held by China's Summer Palace complex, which covers an area of 720,000 square meters (178 acres). The 980 buildings of the Forbidden City have a combined floor space of 1,614,600 square feet (150,001 m2) and contain roughly 9,000 rooms.
The "world's largest palace by floor space" is the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, which was built by communist dictator Nicolae Ceaúsescu in 1986. It is also the most expensive administrative building and heaviest building. The "world's largest royal palace by floor space" is the Royal Palace of Madrid in Spain, with 135,000 square metres (1,450,000 sq ft) of floorspace and contains 3,418 rooms.
The "world's largest palace by volume" would be the Royal Palace of Caserta, with more than 2 million cubic meters (70 million cubic feet).
The title of "world's largest royal domain," as measured by the total area of the property, goes to the Palace of Versailles. Versailles's grounds cover 87,728,720 square feet (8,150,265 m2), or 2,014 acres, including 230 acres of gardens. The palace itself contains 721,206 square feet (67,002 m2) of floorspace.
The Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, with 1000 rooms on 13 levels, and over 130,000 square meters of floor space, is one of the largest palaces in the world by floor area. It was the winter residence of the Dalai Lama until 1959. (Many sources, e.g. give the area as 360,000 square meters.)
In the castle category, Prague Castle claims to be world's largest. However, despite the singular name, Prague Castle is not a single building. Like the Forbidden City, it comprises a number of palaces, temples, and halls (constructed over several centuries) that share a common defensive wall. Altogether, the complex covers 18 acres, leading to the self-appointed title of "Largest coherent castle complex in the world."
Faux palaces
While many buildings carry the title of "palace," they either are no longer, or were never intended to be, used as a royal residence, a sovereign residence or a bishop residence.
Romania's Palace of the Parliament contains 3,552,120 square feet (330,003 m2) of floorspace, it was never a royal residence, as Romania's last monarch abdicated in 1947, but it was the palace intended to be used by the sovereign Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania's supreme ruler and dictator.
England's Palace of Westminster was built in the Middle Ages as a royal residence. It served as the principal residence of the monarch until 1522, when Henry VIII moved his court to the newly acquired Palace of Whitehall. Since that time, the palace at Westminster has been used by the House of Lords, the House of Commons and various courts. The majority of the medieval palace was destroyed by fire in 1834, with construction of the current building starting in 1840. The palace which now stands on the site was designed specifically for parliamentary use, however it is the property of The Crown and retains its status as a royal residence. Very little of the medieval palace survived, but the most significant is Westminster Hall, built in 1097 during the reign of William II.
Converted palaces
Several palaces are former royal residences that reached their current grand sizes after they ceased being used as royal residences, and were converted to some other purpose.
The best example of such subsequent expansion is the Louvre Palace. As a royal residence, the Louvre Palace was much smaller than the modern day Louvre Museum. The Louvre Palace was abandoned as a royal residence in 1682, when Louis XIV moved his court to the Palace of Versailles. The Louvre Palace was relegated to the role of displaying royal collections and hosting administrative services, and over the centuries it went through several renovations, expansions and additions, including a significant one as an Imperial Palace during the second French Empire in the 19th century. It only reached its current size of 2,260,421 square feet (210,000 m2) in 1988, as the modern Louvre Museum.
Russia's Winter Palace and its annexes were not expanded after the Revolution, but the State Hermitage Museum also occupies other buildings which add to the size of the museum, but not to the palace. The Winter Palace contained 645,835 square feet (60,000 m2) of floorspace as a royal residence. However, the modern Hermitage Museum complex, centered on the Winter Palace, contains 1,978,622 square feet (183,820 m2) of floorspace. This includes the Small and the Old Hermitage buildings that were annexes to the main palace, which were used by the Imperial Court and are part of the palace complex. The same is true of the New Hermitage, that was used as a museum for the Imperial collections ever since it was built. All three Hermitages and the Hermitage Theatre can therefore be considered both independent buildings and wings of the Winter Palace. Despite a size which overshadows most other great palaces in Europe, the Winter Palace does not contain as much floorspace, because most of the State apartments in the north and east wings are two floors high.
Uninhabited palaces
With 1,453,122 square feet (134,999 m2) of floorspace, the Royal Palace of Madrid is often considered the largest functioning palace in Europe [3], as it is still used for state functions. Although Spanish monarchs once occupied it, the current King of Spain does not, instead living at the much smaller Palace of Zarzuela.
Although notably smaller than several other palaces throughout the world, with only 658,858 square feet (61,210 m2) of floorspace, the Royal Palace of Stockholm also claims to be "the largest palace in the world still used for its original purpose." Yet, like the Royal Palace of Madrid, it is not currently occupied, with Swedish monarchs instead occupying Drottningholm Palace.
Guinness World Record
While numerous claimants under the various measurements can be recognized, to be considered for the Guinness World Record the palace must have once been intended for use as a royal residence. This is controversial as the definition of a palace is the official residence of a sovereign, chief of state (as a monarch or a president), archbishop, bishop. Furthermore, only the combined area of all floors in the palace (a measurement commonly known as floorspace) is considered.
According to the Guinness World Records, the Imperial Palace in Beijing, China is the largest palace in the world. The Istana Nurul Iman, with 2,152,782 square feet (200,000 m2) of floorspace, holds the title as the "world's largest residential palace."
Largest former palace complexes
In ancient times palace buildings could be as large or even larger than existing palace buildings. One example is the palace of Knossos on Greek island Crete. This palace, which started construction in 2000 BC, reached its biggest size in 1500 BC with a size of 20,000 square meters (215,278.208 square feet) and 1,300 rooms.
The Roman emperor Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, Italy was a complex of over 30 buildings build between 118 and the 130s AD, covering an area of at least 250 acres (1 mio square meters, or 10,763,910 square feet) of which much is still unexcavated. The villa was the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden, recreating a sacred landscape. The complex included palaces, several thermae, theatre, temples, libraries, state rooms, and quarters for courtiers, praetorians, and slaves.
When Roman emperor Nero's "Golden House" (Domus Aurea) was built after the great fire of AD 64, the buildings covered up to 300 acres (1,214,056 square meters, or 13,067,990 square feet). The main villa of the complex had more than 300 rooms.