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The recent debate about UK airports has had various scare stories about the "biggest airport in the world" being built in some greenfield location as an alternative to Heathrow.

It is worth putting this into the context of understanding just exactly what is meant by terms such as "biggest", "busiest", or "busiest international", as is often applied to Heathrow.

The Biggest Airport in the World

Taken literally as the airport which takes up the most land mass, this is the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It takes up some 81 square miles - an area larger than many cities.

Trivia: This airport has four terminals, yet only three have ever been used.

The second biggest airport in the world is Denver International, which takes up 53 square miles.

By comparison, London Heathrow takes up around 3,000 acres, or just 4.7 square miles.

The Busiest Airport in the World

This depends on whether you monitor aircraft movements (the numbers of take-offs and landings), or passenger numbers. An airport such as Washington National may have relatively high aircraft movements, but as the largest aircraft it handles is a Boeing 757, it handles relatively fewer annual passengers than other airports with similar movements.

Movements and passenger numbers are both acceptable methods of determining the "busiest" airport, although passenger numbers is the generally quoted figure.

Most Passenger numbers

Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson is the busiest airport in the world, handling 76.7 million passengers in 2002. Atlanta overtook Chicago O'Hare in 1998, and is now significantly ahead. Chicago handled 66.6 million passengers in 2002.

Busiest International Airport

London Heathrow handles the most international passengers (as opposed to passengers on domestic flights, which make up the majority of traffic at US airports). On an overall scale, Heathrow ranks third behind Atlanta and Chicago.

Busiest City (all airports)

When the flights from all airports in a city are combined, London is the busiest aviation centre in the world.

Only London, Tokyo and New York have two airports in the top 30 worldwide.

Combining New York's JFK (29 943 084) and Newark (29 202 654 ) still does not reach the same level as London Heathrow. Despite being the major international gateway for Japan, Tokyo Narita (28 883 606) is overshadowed by the mainly domestic Haneda (61 079 478). This puts Tokyo on a relatively even keel with Heathrow (63 338 641) and Gatwick (29 628 423).

When Stansted (18 750 000), Luton (6 500 000), and London City (1 500 000) are added on top, London handles a total of almost 120 million passengers annually.

Source: World airports Council , BAA, Luton Airport, London City Airport