Dubai (MarketWatch) -- Dubai doesn't do small.

The world's tallest tower, largest mall, longest bridge -- it has them all, or will soon. The new airport complex, under construction about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of old Dubai, is no exception.

At 140 square kilometers (54 square miles), the land set aside by former Dubai ruler Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum 30 years ago for the visionary $33 billion urban aviation project is almost twice the size of the island of Hong Kong. The heart of this new city, known as Dubai World Central, will be the Al Maktoum International airport. Upon completion, it will be the world's largest airport, bigger than London's Heathrow and Chicago's O'Hare combined.

"It's not just an airport, it's a whole new concept," Abdulla Ahmed Al Qurashi, the head of DWC's aviation division, told MarketWatch in an interview

The sheer dimensions of the $10 billion Al Maktoum airport are difficult to convey. It will have two huge terminals, six concourses, six parallel runways and a smaller terminal for low-cost and regional airlines. The terminals and concourses will be linked by a light railway system.

To give potential partners and investors an idea of what the new airport, and the whole city around it, will look like, DWC has built large models of the project at its headquarters. They are neat and orderly, all perpendicular streets lined with palm trees and pastel-toned buildings. At Al Maktoum, the lights are flashing on the runways and miniature helicopters are on standby on a dozen helipads. The planes are barely an inch long on a model several meters wide.