Tropical Islands
| Tropical Islands | |
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Tropical Islands Resort as seen from inside the dome.
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| Location | Krausnick, Germany |
| Coordinates | 52°02′15″N 13°44′55″E / 52.03750°N 13.74861°ECoordinates: 52°02′15″N 13°44′55″E / 52.03750°N 13.74861°E |
| Opened | 19 December 2004 |
| Website | www.tropical-islands.de |
Tropical Islands Resort is a tropical theme park located in the former Brand-Briesen Airfield in the Krausnick, municipality in the district of Dahme-Spreewald in Brandenburg, Germany, 50 kilometres from the southern boundary of Berlin. It is housed in a former airship hangar (known as the Aerium), the biggest free-standing hall in the world. The hall belonged to the company Cargolifter until its insolvency in 2002.
Tropical Islands has a maximum capacity of 6,000 visitors a day. In its first year of operation it attracted 975,000 visitors, according to the operators. The Tanjong company reported 155,000 visitors in the business year February 2004 to February 2005. Approximately 500 people work at Tropical Islands.
Tropical Islands is located approximately 60 kilometres south of the centre of Berlin and 50 kilometres from the southern boundary of the city. It is close to Briesen/Brand in the south of the municipality of Halbe. The theme park is on the site of the former Soviet airfield Brand, in the Aerium hangar.
It can be reached by taking the A13 autobahn. It can also be reached by train and the closest railway station is Brand.
In 1938, Germany began development of Brand-Briesen Airfield for the Luftwaffe. The Red Army overran the site in May 1945, and occupied the site after World War II, adding a second runway and nuclear-resistant command and control facilities for the fighter aircraft regiment.
With the reunification of East Germany in 1989/1990, the Soviet Army agreed to return all military bases by 1994. Returned to the Federal Government of Germany in 1992, Cargolifter AG bought the former military airfield to construct airships. They began development of a new construction hall, 360 metres long, 210 metres wide and 107 metres high, which cost €78 million. At 5.5 million m³ (194 million ft³), it Is one of the largest buildings on Earth by volume, and is the world's largest single hall without supporting pillars inside. The hangar was commissioned as an airship hangar named Aerium in November 2000, but the airship it was intended to house – the CL160 – was never built. CargoLifter went bankrupt in mid-2002.
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Wikipedia