A BRITISH company has been given approval to create the world’s biggest indoor rainforest near Berlin in a giant hangar that was built to house Zeppelin airships.

The 350ft-high glass-and-steel structure — substantially larger than the Eden Project in Cornwall — will contain tropical flora and fauna as well as six villages representing the indigenous cultures of Malaysia, Thailand, the Congo, the Amazon, Bali and Polynesia.

Visitors will be able to stroll along almost a mile of jungle pathways running through the complex, which will cover an area the size of eight football pitches.

Images of blue skies with fluffy clouds will be projected on its walls, providing what its creators claim will be “the feeling of being on a far-away island”.

Tropical Island, due to open in October at Lausitz, 80 miles south of Berlin, will contain a 42ft mountain and a 490ft-wide “tropical lagoon”. Around it lies a white sand beach complete with more than 1,000 sun loungers for those who tire of the ferns and orchids.

A spokeswoman for Tropical Island Consortium, the British-Malaysian corporation behind the venture, said that it would outstrip the Eden Project, a series of domes in an old clay quarry near St Austell which opened in 2001 and now attracts 1.8m visitors a year. “We know the British like to have the best of everything but this time round I think we win,” she said.

The consortium intends to employ more than 1,000 people and spend £50m on its site, where the temperature will remain a constant 82F during the winter.

The complex will be stocked with birds, giant butterflies, pygmy hippos and monkeys, and will be dotted with fig, gumbo, bamboo and palm trees.

Native performers from Africa, Asia and South America will entertain every night with traditional music, songs and dance. Restaurants in each of the six villages will offer authentic cuisines.

The consortium bought the hangar for £20m from CargoLifter, a German company which had hoped to launch a new generation of 21st- century Zeppelins to carry 160-ton loads across the globe. The venture failed, leaving a hangar of unrivalled dimensions which had cost £52m to build. The Tropical Island Corporation hopes for 3m visitors a year.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Violent video games won’t corrupt
• Pope Benedict XVI: Alma Mater
• Chávez should know what’s good for him