Miniatur Wunderland

Miniatur Wunderland
Company typeLimited liability company
(Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung)
IndustryModel railway
Founded2000; 24 years ago (2000)
Headquarters
Hamburg
,
Germany
Key people
Frederik & Gerrit Braun, Stephan Hertz
Number of employees
360[1]
Websiteminiatur-wunderland.com

The Miniatur Wunderland (German for: "Miniature Wonderland") is, according to Guinness World Records, the largest model railway system in the world.[2] It is located at the historic Speicherstadt in Hamburg and is one of the most popular and most visited sights in Germany.[3][4]

The exhibition includes around 1,120 digitally controlled trains with more than 10,000 wagons. The Wonderland is also designed with around 4,300 houses and bridges, more than 10,000 vehicles – of which around 350 drive independently on the installation – 52 airplanes and around 290,000 figures. The system features a recurring day-night lighting cycle and almost 500,000 built-in LED lights.[5] Of the 7,000 m2 (75,347 sq ft) of floorspace, the models occupies 1,545 m2 (16,630 sq ft).[5]

As of December 2021, the railway consisted of 16,138 m (52,946 ft) of track in H0 scale, divided into nine sections: Harz mountains, the fictitious town of Knuffingen, the Alps and Austria, Hamburg, the United States, Scandinavia, Switzerland, a replica of Hamburg Airport, Italy and South America. Planning is also in progress for the construction of sections for Central America and the Caribbean, Asia, England, Africa and The Netherlands.[6]

  1. ^ "Facts & Figures | Press page Miniatur Wunderland". 12 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  2. ^ "Largest model train set". guinnessworldrecords.com. Guinness World Records Limited. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  3. ^ "The TOP 100 sights and attractions in Germany". germany.travel. Germany Travel. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
  4. ^ "Germany's 10 most visited attractions". dw.com. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
  5. ^ a b "Facts & Figures about Miniatur Wunderland". Retrieved 2023-03-10.
  6. ^ "The Future of Wunderland – Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg". Archived from the original on 2020-07-05. Retrieved 2020-06-16.