There are hundreds of thousands of hospitals across the world, and they come in all sizes. Have you ever wondered which hospitals are the largest? Well, it can be a little difficult to determine, since there are many ways to measure a hospital’s size. There are rankings based on the number of bed, the number of staff and the number of patients served. In addition, there are different rankings for non-profit hospitals, for children’s hospitals, for specialty hospitals and for private versus public hospitals. But, here’s a list for you of five of the largest hospitals in the world; one from each area of the world.

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the world’s largest. It is located in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, South Africa. The hospital has 3200 beds and over 6700 staff members. It is a teaching school for the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School. This hospital is one of 40 hospitals run by South Africa’s Gauteng Provincial Health Services. Every day, 2000 people check into the Baragwanath Hospital and nearly half of them are HIV positive.
Clinical Centre of Serbia- this hospital has 3500 beds and more than 7500 employees. It is generally ranked as second in the world because of the sheer size of the campus of the Baragwanath Hospital, which sits on 173 acres. It is Europe’s largest hospital.
Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, Florida – This is the largest hospital in the US based on number of beds. Jackson has 2000 beds and serves 70,000 patients each year. It is a world leader in organ transplants, performing more than 400 transplants each year.
Ahmedabad Civil Hospital- Located in Ahmedebad India, this is Asia’s largest hospital, with 2800 beds. It is a government run hospital. Ahmedebad is India’s seventh largest city and has some of the best healthcare in the country. Nearly 80,000 surgeries are performed each year on the hospital’s 110 acre campus.
Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine – Located in Beijing, China, this hospital is known for offering world class, yet cost competitive medical care. It is also famous for its practice of traditional Chinese remedies. The hospital employs about 1300 people, including more than 150 high ranking medical specialists, and is the largest hospital in China.
Hospital das Clinicas of the University of Sao Paulo – Located in Brazil, this is Latin America’s largest hospital complex. It offers 2200 beds across six specialized buildings.
Of course, size of a hospital is no measure of the hospital’s ability to provide care. Some of these large hospitals are some of the best in their regions, while some of the best healthcare is also provided at smaller hospitals. And, size is largely determined by how areas of the world tend to build hospitals. For example, the top ten hospitals in Europe are all larger (at least in bed size) than the largest hospital in the US.

As areas and populations grow, these numbers change. So, there’s no guarantee that these hospitals will stay the largest for long.

Phyllis Turner Zerkle blogs about how to find a program for a Masters of Hospital Administration.