Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg

Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg is the largest model railway in the world. More than 1,000 trains with 10,000 waggons are on a journey through the miniature world on 15,400m/16,842yd of tracks. The nine sections include Germany, Switzerland, USA, Scandinavia and Italy, and have been created with much patience and love for detail. Around 760,000 working hours were devoted to the small landscapes that are brought to life by 260,000 figures, 4,000 houses and bridges, and 385,000 lights on at night. You can see sights such as the Elbphilharmonie, Grand Canyon, Matterhorn, St. Peter's Basilica and the Colosseum.

Elaborate technology makes nearly 10,000 cars, ships and trains move through the miniature world. At Knuffinger Airport, planes can even take off and land. Another highlight are the fire runs. For instance, if smoke emerges from a house all of a sudden, an alarm sounds at the fire station, and a fire fighting unit with three to four vehicles moves out with siren wailing and blue light flashing. If the fire can't be extinguished, you might even see a large scale operation with up to 35 vehicles.

As the number of persons allowed in the exhibition rooms is limited, you might experience longer waits especially during peak hours. You should therefore consider booking tickets online. You can find information on when waiting time is shortest on the website as well.

The 1,500 square metre surface is divided into nine sections. It all started in 2000/2001, with the Central Germany section, Knuffingen, and Austria, to which Hamburg and the coast were added in 2002. Later, USA (2003) including the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas as well as Scandinavia (2005) followed. Switzerland (2007) and Knuffingen Airport (2011) were particularly challenging to build. The peaks of the Swiss Alps are up to six metres high, and therefore literally reach the ceiling. Stairs lead past dripstone caves and grottoes through the inside of the mountains. At the airport, up to 45 different planes start and land thanks to unique flight simulation. Since 2016, you can also find small-scale parts of Italy.

And Miniatur Wunderland keeps growing. Lates additions include Venice and Monaco (complete with the Formula 1 track). Considerations for the future include parts of Africa, India, England, or South America.

Miniatur Wunderland is located at Hamburg's warehouse district, next to Hamburg Dungeon and diagonally opposite Speicherstadmuseum. A car park is located on site.

From Hauptbahnhof Süd railway station, you can take subway line U3 (towards Barmbeck) to Baumwall, which is a 10 minutes' walk from Miniatur Wunderland. The closest bus stop Auf dem Sande (Speicherstadt) is serviced by bus lines 6 and 602.