Organization (Details) - entity	12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2017	Dec. 31, 2016
Subsidiary of Limited Liability Company or Limited Partnership [Line Items]
Number of management companies (in entities)	7
The Macerich Partnership, L.P.
Subsidiary of Limited Liability Company or Limited Partnership [Line Items]
Ownership interest in operating partnership (as a percent)	93.00%	93.00%

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

No definition available.

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Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration