Gondwana – Das Praehistorium, Natural history museum and theme park in Schiffweiler, Germany.

Gondwana is an indoor museum with expansive halls depicting different geological periods, populated with mechanical dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. The space is arranged so visitors walk through various environments and experience how life evolved across Earth's history.

Gondwana opened on 14 December 2008 on the site of the former Reden colliery in Schiffweiler, built with five million euros of tourism funding from the Saarland CDU government. A 2013 expansion added twelve themed halls covering milestones of human history. After the state audit office criticised 44 million euros in subsidies in January 2010, the operator announced closure for 31 January 2010, but the state government negotiated continued operation.

The operator calls the concept edutainment: a cinema hall presents over eight billion years from the Big Bang onward, then rooms lead through about 4.5 billion years of Earth history. Reconstructed ecosystems, animation and audio-visual effects stage floods and meteorite impacts. Since 2013 twelve further themed worlds cover milestones of human history, ending in an animatronic dinosaur show and a 4D animation of the Megalodon shark.

The experience works well for families with children of different ages since the exhibits and shows are visual and can be understood without special knowledge. It is best to allow several hours to explore all areas without rushing.

Some of the mechanical dinosaurs are so large and move so realistically that visitors get a genuine sense of the size and power of these animals. These full-scale recreations make the difference between reading about these creatures and standing face-to-face with them quite clear.