Inside the world’s first floating city with shops, restaurants & 5,000 houses

A HUGE floating city is being built in the Indian Ocean – and it’s the first in the world.

The Maldives Floating City will have shops, restaurants and more than 5,000 homes.

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Currently being built just a 15 minute boat ride from mainland Male, the city hopes to be a solution to the current rising sea levels.

The 500-acre lagoon will have all kinds of amenities, including hotels, bars and shops for tourists along with the permanent homes.

Tourists will be able to get a residence permit to buy a house there too.

As many as 20,000 people will be able to live and stay at the floating city, along with access to schools.

Cars won’t be allowed, but buggies and bikes will be able to drive around the roads, made from white sane.

Don’t worry about it floating off – it will be “tethered to the lagoon floor” with all of the roads connected.

It hopes to start building in January 2023, with the first residents moving in by 2024.

However, the project will take around five years to complete.

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The floating city has been created by Dutch Docklands and the island government, who stated on their website: “The city has a nature-based structure of roads and water canals resembling the beautiful and efficient way in which real brain coral is organised.”

Other countries are also looking into creating their own floating citiies.

The Oceanix Busan community would be built on water in Busan in South Korea, with restaurants, winter garden and space for 12,000 residents.

And Dubai’s Heart of Europe islands are a cluster of man-made islands off the coast of the city, with six islands connected by bridge.

Also in Dubai is a new floating hotel where the luxury villas can turn into boats.

If you fancy something closer to home, then you can soon head to a £35m floating resort planned for Norfolk which has 132 lodges, a kids playground and water sports centre

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