The Pentagon has lost its title as world’s biggest office building after eight decades

The Pentagon has lost its title as the world’s biggest office building after nearly eight decades.

Constructed during WWII in the US, the building measures about 6.5 million square feet of floor space, of which a whopping 3.7 million square feet is used as offices.

You can probably guess by the name, but the Pentagon does indeed have five sides, along with five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor.

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It doesn't end there, as about 23,000 military and civilian employees work in the Pentagon, as well as about 3,000 non-defence support personnel.

However, the Pentagon is no longer the world's biggest office building after a newly opened site in India has taken its crown.

The Surat Diamond Bourse encompasses 7,109,045 square feet of office space as over 4,500 diamond traders feature in a first-of-its-kind diamond mall, including 27 diamond jewellery showrooms.

According to the website, the Surat Diamond Bourse 'is a not for profit organisation and is formed for the establishment & promotion of Diamond Bourse at Surat, Gujarat'.

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"The Surat Diamond Bourse would be India's second diamond trading hub based at Surat, Gujarat, spread across 35.54 acres with an availability of 67 lakh Sq.ft. built-up area encompassing 4,500 offices for national & international traders," it adds.

The company say it wants to 'promote imports, exports and trading of Diamonds, Gems & Jewellery from India'.

They also want to focus on 'providing state-of-the-art infrastructure to the organisations engaged in manufacturing & trading of diamonds'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the inauguration ceremony on December 17, 2023 and was seemingly impressed by the site.

So were the people watching from home, as one person commented: "A lot of small businesses coming together to realise a project that makes multinational corporations blush is really inspiring."

The Surat Diamond Bourse

"Looks beautiful, hats off to the guys whoever designed it," a second added.

"Most impressive design and architecture I've seen in a while. It looks unique, rather than another copy+paste "international" style campus," a third wrote.

"I am proud to have worked as a company secretary of the Surat Diamond Bourse," a fourth commented.

"I was involved in project not only from ground zero but when promoters conceived an idea of building a diamond bourse up until the building was completed about 80%, then I immigrated to another country.

"I know that the project was huge but never imagined that it will catch such global attention."