A shopping center (American English), shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.
The first known collections of retailers under one roof are public markets, dating back to ancient times, and Middle Eastern covered markets, bazaars and souqs. In Paris, about 150 covered passages were built between the late 18th century and 1850, and a wealth of shopping arcades were built across Europe in the 19th century. In the United States, the widespread use of the automobile in the 1920s led to the first shopping centers of a few dozen shops that included parking for cars. Starting in 1946, larger, open air centers anchored by department stores were built (sometimes as a collection of adjacent retail properties with different owners), then enclosed shopping malls starting with Victor Gruen's Southdale Center near Minneapolis in 1956.
A shopping mall is a type of shopping center, a North American term originally meaning a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s began to be used as a generic term for large shopping centers anchored by department stores, especially enclosed centers. Many malls in the United States are currently in severe decline ("dead malls") or have closed. Successful exceptions have added entertainment and experiential features, added big-box stores as anchor tenants, or are specialized formats: power centers, lifestyle centers, factory outlet centers, and festival marketplaces. Smaller types of shopping centers in North America include neighborhood shopping centers, and even smaller, strip malls. Pedestrian malls (shopping streets) in the United States have been less common and less successful than in Europe. In Canada, underground passages in Montreal and Toronto link large adjacent downtown retail spaces.
In the United Kingdom and Europe shopping malls/centers continue to grow and thrive. In the region distinction is made between shopping centers (shops under one roof), shopping precincts (pedestrianized zones of a town or city where many retail stores are located), the "high street" (street – pedestrianized or not – with a high concentration of retail shops), and retail parks (usually out of the city center, 5000 sq.m. or larger and anchored by big-box stores or supermarkets, rather than department stores).
Types
Most English-speaker follow a mix of the United Kingdom's and United States's naming conventions.
In the U.K. a "centre for shopping" is commonly the center for a settlement. More recent shopping dedicated areas outside the main centre are known as "shopping centres" (with understanding of the synonym shopping mall) "shopping villages" or "retail parks".
According to author Richard Longstreth, before the 1920s–1930s, the term "shopping center" in the U.S. was loosely applied to any group of adjacent retail businesses. A city's downtown might be called a "shopping center". By the 1940s, the term "shopping center" implied — if not always a single owner — at least, a place sharing comprehensive design planning, including layout, signs, exterior lighting, and parking; and shared business planning that covered the target market, types of stores and store mix.
The International Council of Shopping Centers classifies Asia-Pacific, European, U.S., and Canadian shopping centers into the following types:
Abbreviations: SC=shopping center/centre, GLA = Gross Leasable Area, NLA = Net Leasable Area, AP=Asia-Pacific, EU=Europe, Can=Canada, US=United States of America *does not apply to Europe
General-purpose
Multiregional
A superregional-scale center is commonly called a city centre. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers it is over of gross leasable area. These have three or more anchors, mass and varied merchant trade and serves as the dominant venue for the region () in which it is located.
Note that ICSC defines indoor centers above net leasable area in Asia-Pacific as mega-malls.
Regional
A regional-scale shopping center (commonly known as a town center) is typically larger with to gross leasable area with at least two anchor stores and offers a wider selection of stores. Given their wider service area, these tend to have higher-end stores (department stores) that need a larger area in order for their services to be profitable. Regional centers are have tourist attractions, education and hospitality areas.
Indoor centers are commonly called Shopping Malls in the U.S. or Shopping Centres in Commonwealth English.