Iran is in the process of building the world's largest ever bookstore.

484,376 square feet.

That's how big of a bookstore Iran--that beacon of freedom of speech you all know and love--is looking to build.

For perspective, The Guinness Book of World Records says the largest bookstore ever known was, of all things, a Barnes & Noble flagship store on New York City's 5th Avenue that measured in at 154,250 square feet. Even that couldn't survive and closed down in 2014.

Iran's desire to follow through with the bookstore is even more strange when, as Holly Dagres at Aeon notes, some publishers barely print 300 copies of a book in Iran these days--and that's if they're allowed to publish the book at all.

Will the bookstore survive? Will it work? Will it inspire a different kind of Iranian revolution? Or, perhaps, will Iran be able to say their stores are no different than a Manhattan Barnes & Noble and close up shop?

Because down deep, you'd be surprised how much Tehran channels its inner midtown Manhattan on a daily basis.