The Eden Project, Cornwall

Eden Project Virtual Tour

With its distinctive white domes, the Eden Project is probably Cornwall's best-known tourist attraction. But it's much more than just a big green theme park and visitors can expect to come away with a better understanding of the environment and their interaction with it. As they put it themselves at the Eden Project, 'we aim to reconnect people with their environments locally and globally'.

Dubbed 'the Eighth Wonder of the World', The Eden Project is primarily the idea of Tim Smit, the man behind the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Eden was funded by a £55.3 million grant from the Millennium Commission and is run by a charitable trust. It opened its doors on 17th March 2001, since when it has had more than 8 million visitors.

The Eden Project is sited in a former china clay pit at Bodelva, near St Austell, Cornwall. It currently consists of three biomes (a biome is a large naturally occuring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat), the Outdoor Biome, Rainforest Biome and Mediterranean Biome. The Eden Project's award-winning £15 million education Centre, The Core, was opened by the Queen in June 2006.

If you're planning a visit to the Eden Project, they recommend you allow around four hours to fully enjoy the site.

Over the Edge

The next step in the Eden Project's evolution is 'The Edge', a biome that focusses on the world's desert regions in the context of the future of water and energy resources and their impact on climate change. The Edge is one of five projects competing for the Big Lottery Fund’s £50m Living
Landmarks: The People’s Millions award. The winning project will be decided by a public vote.

The Eden Project in numbers

The Eden Project has had more than 8 million visitors since it opened in 2001

Eden's Rainforest Biome is 50 metres high, 110 metres wide and 240 metres long

The Eden Project's Biomes contain more than a million plants representing 5,000 species from around the World.

Around 250 schoolchildren visit the Eden Project every day.