There are more than 3,200 planetaria worldwide. The largest ones impress with an extraordinary architecture. In most cases, the domes are giant hemispheres, but pyramids and cylindrical shapes are also realized for their outer facade. The largest spherical building is considered to be the Globe Arena in Stockholm (built in 1989, diameter: 110 m, capacity: 16.000 spectators). However, it is not a real planetarium, since it has no astronomical deployment. It is assigned to perform sporting or cultural events instead. The number of large planetaria having a dome size of more than 18 meters is 204 (July 2008). Most of these are located in Japan (70 facilities), USA (35), China and Germany (9 each), Mexico (7) and Canada (5). Large planetaria exist in 44 countries.

List of the largest planetarium domes:

Niihama, Japan	30 m	300	Goto GSS-Helios
Tanashi/Tokyo, Japan	27.5 m	254	Goto GSS-Helios
Beijing, China	27 m	470	Astrovision
Himeji, Japan	27 m	305	Minolta Infinium
Miyazaki, Japan	27 m	280	Goto Super-Helios
Osaka, Japan	26.5 m	316	Minolta Infinium
Moscow, Russia	26 m	500	closed
Tsukuba, Japan	25.6 m	344	Minolta Geministar
Taipei, Taiwan	25 m	325	Zeiss Mark-IV
Athens, Greece	25 m	300	Zeiss Mark-IV
Sendai, Japan	25 m	280	Goto GSS-Chiron
St. Louis, USA	24.4 m	--	Universarium-IX
Orlando, USA	24.1 m	309	Digistar-II
Valencia, Spain	24 m	306	Universarium-III