With its existing 12 shopping centers, Romanian capital Bucharest is close to the French capital Paris, which hosts 14 shopping centers, but outranking it when it comes to the shopping center area, according to a recent study by DTZ. As a whole, Romania is however far below France: only 48 shopping centers in total in Romania, while France has 597.

Bucharest ranks 25th among the cities with the biggest shopping-scape area in Europe, according to DTZ. It has 421,000 sqm of shopping malls and comes after Warsaw, Prague and Kiev, but ranks higher than Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Bucharest has 186 sqm of shopping centers per 1,000 inhabitants, while the figure is of 56 sqm in the country on average. The capital ranks better than Paris, which has 141 sqm of shopping center space per 1,000 people, but the rest of Romania drags it down, much below the national average of 227 sqm per 1000 people in France.

Bucharest, with its 2.2 million inhabitants, is on a par with Lyon for shopping centers, even though Lyon has slightly fewer inhabitants, only 1.7 million.

The size of Bucharest's shopping center market is below to that of Prague, which has 30 shopping centers for 1.2 million inhabitants. The Czech Republic as a whole has more malls than Romania, with 88 shopping centers across the country, almost double the amount in Romania. Neighbor Hungary has 43 shopping malls, less than Romania, but its capital Budapest hosts 16 shopping centers. These numbers bring the shopping space per 1,000 inhabitants up to 410 sqm for Budapest, and at 124 sqm for Hungary.

In another comparison, Copenhagen, with just 668,000 inhabitants, boasts 23 shopping malls. Berlin has 369 sqm of shopping centers for 1,000 people and 42 shopping centers, serving its 3.4 million inhabitants.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Iris Shopping Center)