This absolutely immense pool is 1 kilometre long and covers eight hectares - that's 80,000 square metres.  It's filled with about 250,000 cubic meters of salt water which is roughly equivalent to about 6,000 standard backyard pools. It cost about $1.5 billion to build and maintenance alone is about $4 million a year.

Already drawing the crowds in the South American resort of San Alfonso del Mar in Chile, this artificial lagoon and swimming pool is acknowledged by Guinness World Records as being the world's largest swimming pool, the lagoon trounces all other record holders in the category, including the Orthlieb pool in Casablanca, Morocco, itself a huge 150 meters by 100 meters (one sixth the size). The revolutionary clear water artificial lagoons, transparent to a depth of 35 meters and unprecedented in design and construction methods, are the brainchild of Crystal Lagoons founder, biochemist and Chilean businessman Fernando Fischmann.

It seems the world has gone crazy for the massive pools, with Crystal Lagoons confirming that they are in advanced planning stages with companies all over the world, in particular in the Middle East, where, says Fischmann, companies are only too keen to take advantage of the way in which the lagoons form "impressive artificial paradises, even in inhospitable areas", and at surprisingly low construction and maintenance costs. Currently in talks with both the Nakheel and the Dubai Property Group, Fischmann will be at Cityscape to outline the technology in detail which involves the use of unlimited volumes of clear water: "This advance provides something that until now was not technically possible - the generation of monumental masses of water in a crystalline state to provide a beach life environment and aquatic sports at the top level."