Tim Smit Marks Eden Project’s 25th Anniversary and 25 Million Visitors

The eden project is marking its 25th anniversary this year after opening in 2001 near St Austell in Cornwall. More than 25 million people have passed through its gates since then.

Co-founder Tim Smit is closely associated with the site and is often photographed with the giant Seed sculpture in the Core building. The milestone comes as the attraction continues to draw visitors to its giant Biomes, Outdoor Gardens, Nature's Playground and Invisible Worlds exhibition.

St Austell and the Biomes

The Rainforest Biome remains one of the site’s most striking spaces. It is 100 metres wide and 55 metres high, and it houses more than 1,000 varieties of rainforest plants.

Inside, temperatures can climb to 37C, with bananas, coffee and cacao among the plants on display. The Mediterranean Biome adds more than 1,000 species from the Mediterranean Basin, as well as California, South Africa and Western Australia.

Tim Smit and the Core building

Smit’s link to the project has long been tied to the Core building and its giant Seed sculpture. The site’s scale has made it a major visitor destination in Cornwall, with more than 25 million people recorded since opening in 2001.

That visitor total sets the size of the anniversary in practical terms: the project is not marking a private milestone but one tied to a long-running public attraction that continues to operate across multiple areas of the site. The anniversary gives visitors a fixed moment to take in the Biomes, the gardens and the immersive digital display in Invisible Worlds.

For anyone planning a visit, the key features named by the project are the Rainforest Biome, the Mediterranean Biome, the Outdoor Gardens, Nature's Playground and the Core building. Those are the parts of the site that have carried it from its 2001 opening to this year's 25th anniversary.