25 Years of Miniatur Wunderland: Anniversary of a Unique Attraction
The brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun are presenting "Venice".
© Photo: Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
(eap) On 16 August 2001, Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, founded by brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun together with Stephan Hertz, opened its doors to visitors for the first time. Yesterday, exactly 25 years later, the attraction celebrated its anniversary – a milestone in a story that began as a 300-square-metre model railway world and today, spanning almost 1,700 square metres, tells the story of one of Germany’s most successful visitor attractions…
Grand opening: On August 16, 2001, the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg welcomed its first guests. © Foto: Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
“When I look back at the night before we opened, when I couldn’t sleep a wink because I was so worried, and compare that with what it has become – even today, I sometimes find myself lost for words,” Frederik Braun commented on the attraction’s 25th “birthday”, while his brother Gerrit proudly added: “[…] We have welcomed Hollywood and rock stars, state guests, enthusiastic model railway fans and many millions of excited children. There are days when three times as many people want to visit Wunderland as we can possibly let in. I love our world with all my heart, but I never expected so many people to share that love.”
The "Patagonia" area is one of the latest expansions at Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg. © Foto: EAP-Magazin
As soon as guests enter Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, they embark on a journey through an intricately staged model railway universe that now comprises more than 16 kilometres of track, travelled by 1,231 miniature trains with a total of more than 12,000 carriages. The settings through which the trains travel are predominantly recreated sections of places, countries and landscapes: from Hamburg, America, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Italy to Rio de Janeiro and faraway Patagonia, to name just a selection. The Amazon rainforest and the Atacama Desert are due to open soon.
Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, with more than 16 kilometres of track now laid for 1,231 miniature trains with a total of over 12,000 carriages, has already set quite a few records... © Foto: Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
Among the particular achievements Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg has celebrated over the years, in addition to its strong visitor numbers, are honours such as the Federal Cross of Merit awarded to Frederik and Gerrit Braun, five Guinness World Records, the publication of a biography of the two brothers in 2017, the opening of a virtual reality experience in 2022 and the premiere of a Wunderland feature film in March 2024. In the German National Tourist Board’s ranking of Germany’s most popular travel destinations, Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg is regularly listed among the country’s most popular attractions, and in 2025 it welcomed its 25 millionth guest since opening. Today, the miniature world employs around 450 people, and there is no shortage of ideas for the future.
Sebastian Drechsler, one of the people behind Wunderland and the younger brother of Gerrit and Frederik, explains: “Our strength does not lie in managing things, but in bringing ideas and places to life. We have so many ideas that we simply haven’t had time for yet. At the moment, we are working on a major new feature film, the final sections of our South America decade, preparing Asia, experimenting with new technologies – and we have plenty of other crazy ideas in mind as well.”
Model railway fans therefore have plenty to look forward to, with new discoveries still to come at Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, which expects to welcome around 1.6 million visitors from all over the world in 2026 alone. ■
