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The following is a list of some of the largest buildings that are considered palaces in terms by area. The title of the "world's largest palace" is both difficult to award and controversial, as different countries use different standards to claim that their palace is the largest in the world.
The title of world's largest palace by area enclosed within the palace's fortified walls is held by China's Forbidden City complex in Beijing, which covers an area of 728,000 square metres (180 acres). The 980 buildings of the Forbidden City have a combined floor space of 1,614,600 square feet (150,001 m2) and contain 9,999 rooms (the ancient Chinese believed the god Yù Huáng had 10,000 rooms in his palace; so they constructed an earthly palace to have 9,999 and a half rooms, slightly fewer than in the divine palace, out of respect).
The world's largest functioning residential palace is the Istana Nurul Iman in Brunei, with 200,000 square metres (2,200,000 sq ft) of floor space and contains 1,788 rooms. The building also has 257 bathrooms, a banqueting hall that can seat 5,000 guests, a garage that can fit 110 cars, five swimming pools, and an air-conditioned stable that can fit up to 200 polo ponies.[1]
The Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, with 1000 rooms on 13 levels, and over 130,000 square metres (1,400,000 sq ft) of floor space,[2] 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[3] give the area as 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft).)
In the castle category, Prague and Malbork castles claim to be world's largest. However, the task is made more difficult by the fact, that castles underwent changes over centuries and were not originally intended to be palaces, but military strongholds, although most of the existing castles were either converted to palaces or a palace building was added to them. In addition to the difficulty of area measurement by floor area, land area and garden area, we are faced the question if the castle should be considered as it exists or in its historically most extended form. Prague castle is the biggest castle according to the Guiness Book of Records[4][5] with area of 70,000 square metres (750,000 square feet), but this area does not contain the castle gardens, stables and Letohrádek Královny Anny located on a separate hill. Malbork Castle claims to be the biggest and bases this claim on the property lot size listed in UNESCO world heritage records[6] with a lot size of 18.038 ha (44.57 acres).
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