Dubai spent $1 billion building the largest indoor theme park on Earth — here's what it's like inside

IMG Worlds of Adventure measures 1.5 million square feet (IMG Worlds of Adventure)

Dubai is already home to the world's tallest building, artificial islands, and the world's first hotel with a rainforest. And now it's also home to the largest indoor theme park on Earth.

Measuring 1.5 million square feet, IMG Worlds of Adventure — which opened on August 31, 2016 — is a nod to characters from Cartoon Network and Disney's Marvel universe.

The $1 billion (£750 million) theme park was opened by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid in August 2016.

The theme park occupies 1.5million square foot of indoor space. That's approximately the same size as 28 American football fields.

IMG Worlds of Adventure cost more than $1 billion (£750 million) to build and is one of the most recent additions to the city's bid to become an entertainment capital, as high-end hotels and luxury shopping malls increasingly dominate the skyline.

(AP Photo/Jon Gambrell (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

​The huge space can host 30,000 visitors a day and even includes a 12-screen cinema complex with an IMAX screen.

And with theme park revenues in the United Arab Emirates expected to increase by 78% to $837 million (£648 million) in 2019, the park has a head start in positioning itself as one of the region's leading entertainment centres.

The park is divided into four zones: MARVEL, Cartoon Network, Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure, and IMG Boulevard.

(IMG Worlds of Adventure (IMG Worlds of Adventure)

There are 22 rides and attractions in IMG Worlds of Adventure, including this velociraptor rollercoaster which takes riders around the indoor park before speeding through the surrounding desert. The ride is in The Lost Valley zone.

It propels riders to speeds of up to 100 km in 2.5 seconds, launching them from the deep dark prehistoric jungles of the Lost Valley out into the Dubai desert and back.

The Haunted Hotel is also a particularly popular attraction. The immersive experience is filled with mazes and sits on IMG Boulevard, which covers 200,000 square feet of space.

(IMG Worlds of Adventure (IMG Worlds of Adventure)

Elsewhere in the park, Cartoon Network classics like the Powerpuff Girls sit alongside Marvel heroes including the Hulk and Spiderman.

There are also 25 shops and 28 restaurants and bars — and their price tags are what you'd expect from Dubai. You can buy a pen for a cool 115,000 dirhams ($31,300 or £23,000).

The idea of a temperature-controlled indoor theme park is appealing to locals in a place where summer temperatures reach an average high of 41°C (106°F).

(AP Photo/Jon Gambrell (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

IMG Worlds of Adventure is one of several theme parks attracting tourists to the region.

​Dubai hopes to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2020, when the World Expo will visit the city. In 2015, 14 million people visited the city.

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