I’ve never been big on big things. My eyes just glaze over when I’m on a tour of some landmark and they start talking feet and how much a tower weighs and the exact height of a groin vault.
But I know others find these numbers interesting, and I recently discovered that there is a lot of rivalry as to which are the largest cathedrals in the world. The tallest? The longest? The most square feet?
So just for fun I put together a list based on what I could glean from various sources according to square feet. See what you think, and let me know in the comments what number 15 might be to round things off!
The Seville Cathedral
| Rank | Church | Square Feet | Length |
| 1. | Cathedral of St. Mary of the Chair, Seville | 128,570 | 601 |
| 2. | Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York | 121,000 | 601 |
| 3. | Cathedral of the Nativity of Mary, Milan | 107,000 | 500 |
| 4. | Christ Cathedral, Liverpool | 104,275 | 619 |
| 5. | Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Mary, Cologne | 91,464 | 511 |
| 6. | Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul, Washington* | 75,000 | 534 |
| 7. | Cathedral of Our Lady (Notre Dame), Amiens | 71,208 | 521 |
| 8. | Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), Istanbul** | 70,000 | 350 |
| 9. | Cathedral of Our Lady (Notre Dame), Chartres | 68,260 | 507 |
| 10. | Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles | 65,000 | 333 |
| 11. | Cathedral of Our Lady (Notre Dame), Paris | 64,108 | 390 |
| 12. | Cathedral of St. Peter (York Minster), York | 63,300 | 486 |
| 13. | St. Paul’s Cathedral, London | 59,700 | 460 |
| 14. | St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York | 57,768 | 332 |
* Also called the Washington National Cathedral
** From 532 to 1453 CE, now a museum
July 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Thanks for the cathedral info. My wife and I toured Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris two years ago and we recently toured Washington National Cathedral during the July 4 weekend. We were blessed and impressed by both. Our photos of Notre Dame can be seen on my website on the Paris photo page and I’ll have the National Cathedral photos posted soon. Please visit my website at http://www.edtant.com.
August 15th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Thank you, it is really nice table. I am intereted in the area of dimensions of the great cathedrals too, but my specialisation is Europe and I see there also more mistakes. I am writing the most important:
There is not St. Peter from Rome, the largest one, but if we’ll take strictly only cathedrals, it is not, and it is OK, but according to me it shall be there.
There is not Florence Cathedral with an area ca. 89,500 sq.f.
According to my database are more length dimendions from this table bad: e.g. Seville (is ca. about 150 ft shorter), Cologne, Amiens or Charter (are more than 30 ft shorter) or on the other hand Paris is ca. 40 feet longer etc.
The area I feel also probably as the best criterion for “the largest…”, BUT according to my experinces is much more easy to obtain serious values for the length (except Britain, where are available exact dimensions for almost big churches). E.g. more large churches from Italy with a length more than 400 ft as e.g. Rome’s cathedral St. Giovanni, Rome’s St. Paul or Bologna’s St. Petronio. Lengths are good known, but areas not.
For this reason I am not able to help you with “no 15″ and I have also more doubts about many numbers from your table. But I can image the table e.g. for 30 not largest, but longest churches or cathedrals. For such table I can help with my database for many European churches and cathedrals
Have a nice day.
Martin
August 15th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Sorry I know the area of St. Petronio from Bologna – ca. 85 250 sq. ft. – it shall be also in your table. But there is maybe more others.
Martin