Honduras approves 'floating city'

Website offers a vision of life on board

The Honduran Government has given the go-ahead for the construction of a floating city - a massive luxury ship that will sail around the world with up to 90,000 residents.

The Miami-based company, Freedom Ship International, plans to build the $8.5bn project in the Bay of Trujillo on Honduras's Atlantic Coast.

Freedom Ship is not a cruise ship, but a fascinating and unique place to live

Freedom Ship website

The company's website says the ship will be ''a mobile modern city featuring luxurious living'', continually circling the globe with no local taxes and all the amenities that could be desired for business and leisure.

The ship will be 25-stories high and more than half a mile long (1km) with a runway on top for small planes.

$11m residential unit

The planners say it will have a library, schools, a hospital as well as retail and wholesale shops and entertainment and commercial business facilities.

''Freedom Ship is not a cruise ship, but a fascinating and unique place to live, work, retire, vacation or visit,'' the website says.

Residential unit prices range from $121,000 for an economy unit featuring a large hallway window to $11m for the most luxurious unit at the front of the ship.

Honduran officials said the project will employ up to 10,000 workers. Honduras was chosen because of the cheap labour there.

Construction is to begin next week on company offices and work on the ship itself will start shortly after.

Negotiations with the government have been underway since January 1999.