An underground city is a network of tunnels that connects various buildings below the street level. These may include office blocks, metro stations, underground shopping malls.

Montreal's Underground City Network

Underground structures or networks are usually found in countries with cold climate. For example, the temperature in Canada in winter is -10 degree Celsius. The climate in Canada does not permit free movement over ground. That is the reason for the development of underground cities. Montreal’s RESO is the world’s largest Underground city in Canada. It is popularly known as “Double Decker City“.

Underground cities usually have entrances through public spaces. The underground structure rises over ground and provides for a proper entrance to the underground structure.

Tenjin underground City, Japan

There are some underground tunnels that have an opening on the ground which slowly leads the traffic to the underground city.

Underground cities are similar in nature to skyway systems and may include some buildings linked by skyways or above ground corridors rather than underground. The purpose of construction of skyways or underground cities is the same which is protection from weather.

(Skyways are known as catwalks, sky bridge etc. A skyway is an enclosed bridge connecting the two buildings. The purpose of construction of skyways is mainly to protect the pedestrians from weather.

Skyways are usually seen in business buildings and therefore not common in public spaces. Skyways usually connect the two buildings on the first few floors above ground, they could be higher too. Petronas Towers is an excellent example of a skyway. This skyways being higher is referred to as Sky bridge.

Petronas Towers - skybridge

The skyways are seen to occur in University campuses connecting more than one block.

The world’s largest skyway network – Calgary, Alberta’s “+15 Walkway” system – has a total length of 16 km (10 miles). However, the system is discontinuous, and it does not connect every downtown building. The largest continuous network of skyways – the Minneapolis Skyway System – spans 8 miles (13 km) connecting 69 blocks in downtown Minneapolis.)

Montreal’s Reso is the world’s largest underground city network used by millions of people. Toronto’s Path is the world’s underground shopping complex which has 371,600 square metres of retail space.

Japan has individually smaller networks but are the most extensive networks. It has a total of 76 underground shopping streets totalling over 900,000 square metres of floor space in 1996, with many expansions since then.

Many countries round the world have developed the concept of an Underground City. Some of the countries which have underground cities are:

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Canada
4. Chile
5. China
6. Finland
7. France
8. Germany
9. Greece
10. Hong Kong
11. India
12. Iran
13. Italy
14. Japan
15. Mexico
16. Pakistan
17. Russia
18. Singapore
19. Spain
20. Switzerland
21. Taiwan
22. Thailand
23. Turkey
24. Ukraine
25. United Kingdom
26. United States

Related posts:

1. World’s Largest Underground City | Montreal’s RESO, Canada
2. Concept of Fire Zoning | National Building Code

Civil Engineering Projects

Montreal Underground city and Over ground city – Double Decker City

Montreal is the Second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. The name Montreal has been taken from Mont-Royal which is the triple peaked hill located in the heart of the city.

Underground Metro Station

Montreal is also the world’s largest underground complex in the world. It is also known as the indoor city. Montreal is the network of interconnected complexes underground. But entire city is not underground. There are certain parts which are overground. Since Montreal has both overground city complex as well as underground city complex, it is popularly known as “Double Decker City” or “Two Cities in One”. The interconnections between different complexes that are underground has been achieved through the construction of tunnels. The tunnels are technically and architecturally sound. They have conditioned air and good lighting to create comfortable environment and make it aesthetically pleasing.

Some tunnels are narrow which serve as a wide passage for the people to pass whereas there are some large tunnels which are wide enough and bear shops on either sides of the tunnel.

Underground City

The various complexes connected through tunnels include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena.

Access to the underground city has been designed for easy accessibility by the people. This has been achieved by providing around 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 3.6 km2 (1.4 sq mi) of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal.

Underground tunnel connecting various complexes in the underground city

Since the climate in Canada in winter does not permit easy movement in the city overground, they have developed the entire concept of Underground city so that the people can move around comfortably irrespective of the kind of climate. It is estimated that over 500,000 people use the underground city in winter everyday.

Between 1984 and 1992, the underground city expanded, with the construction of three major linked shopping centres in the Peel and McGill metro station areas: Cours Mont-Royal, Place Montréal-Trust, and the Promenades Cathedral.

Development of the Montreal’s Underground City

Mega-projects added to the size throughout the 1990s, including Le 1000 De La Gauchetière which is the tallest building in Montreal, Le 1250 René-Lévesque, and the Montreal World Trade Centre. These trade centres have a connection to the underground city as a selling point for their office space which is why they have a secondary commercial sector.

McGill Metro station

Also, the construction of a tunnel between Eaton Centre and Place Ville-Marie consolidated the two central halves of the underground city. The construction of the Bell (originally Molson) Centre connected Lucien-L’Allier metro station to the underground city, as well as replacing Windsor Station with the new Gare Lucien-L’Allier commuter train station.

Finally, in 2003, the complete redevelopment of the Quartier international de Montreal consolidated several segments of the central underground city with continuous pedestrian corridors.

Various development projects that were proposed for the over ground Montreal City have been interconnected with the Underground city of Montreal.

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Civil Engineering Projects