Nowday the zones have been shrinked and it is not what it used to be. I remember zones like Ashenvale, hellfire peninsula from BC were quite big but not anymore which is quite sad.
I was wondering what zones are the largest since wow was launched?
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Tanaris and Borean Tundra stand out to me as especially large zones. Ashenvale was pretty extensive too.
With the timegating of flying, they shrunk the zones. I think it makes quest flow better, but it definitely takes away from the Grand scale of the game.
MoP probably did the best in showcasing a beautiful large land that could be well-appreciated from the air. That place is so gorgeous.
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MOP was the end of wow 
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Silithus was huge, so was Tanaris back in the day.
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Kalmidor
Eastern Kingdoms
Northerend
Outland
Pandaria
Revendreath before flying
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Every time I go there questing, I feel it’s a huge zone with beautiful views. Stonetalon Mountains.
The Barrens pre-Cata.
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Stonetalon felt big because of how you have to move in the zone, the mountains really create a sense of grandiosity that’s lacking when you can fly through it.
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Shrunk, please. How to put my teeth on edge in the first sentence of your post.
What I’d do is to pick a zone that looks large and ride across it, timing how long it takes to go from the furthest point to point. I think you will be surprised, because I was. They look big but they often aren’t that much different in size to what we have now. The map keeps being altered so it just seems the early zones were bigger. Tanaris, for example, looks quite big. I flew to Gadgetzan and rode on a ground mount to the most southerly point and it took me 4 minutes. I did the same thing in Bastion, north to most southerly point, and it took me 5 minutes. While Tanaris is flat and Bastion isn’t I still rode as straight a line as possible and managed to avoid mobs that might delay me while staying straight.
The real difference is in numbers. Northrend (the Wrath zone expansion) had 10 zones, if you include Wintergrasp and Coldarra as separate zones. Cataclysm had 7 zones, Pandaria had 9 I think. To date in S’lands we have 5, plus the new one coming in 9.1, and no idea how many after that. The amount of space we are being offered to play in shrinks each expansion, at least for the last few.
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But you’re already a Gnome!
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All of Outland’s zones are quite big. EK and Kalimdor both had zones that got split during cata cause of how large they are. Vashjir is a zone so big it has sub zones.
I personally miss big zones I wouldn’t want all my zones to be like that but i wish they did more.
My biggest problem now with zone design though is not size but height. So many new zones are designed as cliffs and craters and personally I hate it. It’s a pain to navigate and often makes things feel very claustrophobic. It can also make zones that are actually large feel small cause even though technically the zones are large you have to go through specific and narrow paths in order to get where you want.
Zones like the broken shore, Nazjatar, and Revendreth are some of the worst offenders though other zones have similar issues for at least large sections of the zones. Most of the new zones in expacs dont give me nearly the same feeling of freedom and being let loose in the world as older zones used to. Again not every zones should be wide and open but right now I feel we hardly get any of that.
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OG Barrens
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Dragonblight, Vashj’ir, Storm Peaks, Icecrown, The Barrens, Ashenvale, Tanaris. You can shave off one, though.
Technically, Silithus could be the largest, but they ended up axing the outdoor portion of Ahn’Qiraj; there are still patrolling Silithid “behind/beneath” the uninstanced Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. They were there in Vanilla, so they should be there in Classic.
Edit: Since I mentioned something not generally accessible already: The original Emerald Dream zone. I doubt its remnants are still in the game at this point, but it was huge. I want to say the external alpha Outland zone, but I think that might actually have been very tiny, and there’s very few videos documenting it at all due to the point in the game it existed and the ability to get there.
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They’re all 100x100. check your map coords.
Your Mom! Lol, gottem!
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Silithus isn’t big. You can ride from one side to the other in about 3 minutes. If that.
The only reason zones like Vash’jir seem large is because you have to swim through them and I think that makes them feel larger. However, they are a decent size, comparatively.
If you base zone size on whether or not they have geographical features, that isn’t a matter of size so much as it is travel time or complexity. And once flight is introduced, those issues vanish. I personally prefer a zone to have heights and depths and detail to something like Silithus which is flat as a piece of paper and just about as dull.
Original stranglethorn vale has gotta be up there
This! I remember the old Stranglethorn Vale zone before it was split into two in Cataclysm. This zone used to be huge when it was just one area.
Took at least 5 minutes to get from the northern half of the area to Booty Bay. And that was when you had a mount. Walking thru the zone took at least 10 minutes.
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Alot of the more vertical zones are built with the knowledge of eventual flying so they are bad, until we get flying and then they make alot more sense.