Which airport is biggest in the world?

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Krisis

Oh I watched a show on National Geographic about this only the other day.
Heathrow in London is the biggest airport.

ashwani b

Taken literally as the airport which takes up the most land mass, this is the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It takes up some 81 square miles - an area larger than many cities.

manxbiker

Biggest and Busiest Airports in the World
In terms of physical size, the biggest/largest airports in the world are:
King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia which is the largest by area and is 780 km2 and is bigger than the neighbouring country of Bahrain!
Denver International Airport is 137.25 km2 with six runways.
The Dubai World Central International Airport is currently under construction and due to be fully operational by 2017. It will have 6 x 4.5km long runways, underground parking for 100,000 cars, capacity for 4 planes to land at the same time, 16 cargo terminals capable of handling 12 million tonnes per year and the airport will be able to handle over 120 million passengers per year - which is 30% more than Atlanta - the busiest airport in the world.
Which is the world's busiest airport?
It may seem like a question with a simple answer, but many of the worlds big airports claim to be the busiest under different criteria. Basing "busiest" as the most number of passengers, the top 5 busiest airports in the world are:

Atlanta Airport in USA carries the largest number of passengers and the most arrivals and departures. Almost 75 million passengers used in in 2007.
London Heathrow in the UK carries the most international passengers and 67.5 million passengers used it in 2007.
Chicago O'Hare Airport in the USA carried over 64 million passengers in 2007.
Tokyo Airport in Japan carried over 55 million passengers in 2007.
Los Angeles Airport carried almost 52 million passengers in 2007.
Other trivia....
London Gatwick is the busiest single runway airport.
Frankfurt Airport serves the most international destinations.
If all of traffic for London's five airports were added together, they would collectively be the busiest airports in any city across the world.

Neil

The answer depends on what you mean by "biggest."

Fraser

I'm surprised someone said Heathrow is biggest by area and cites their source as '20yrs of travelling'. Have you only ever flown between Heathrow and some tinpot airfield?

For an airport as busy as Heathrow it is very compact and very small!

Atlanta- Busiest by movements
Heathrow - Busiest by international flights
Riyadh - Area

Shirley

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It takes up some 81 square miles - an area larger than many cities is the biggest airport in the world.

turner

Someone above mentioned Beijing. I saw a show that said upon completion it will be the largest single building structure in the world. Previously, this was the new Bangkok airport. Huge structures, but not sure about passenger numbers or land size.