The Biggest Christmas Tree

Claim:   Photograph shows “the world’s largest Christmas tree display.”

TRUE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, December 2009]

I received an email with photos of “Christmas trees from around the world.” One photo of “the world’s largest Christmas tree display” in particular looks very questionable:

Origins:   Every year since 1980, between 7 December (the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception) through 10 January, Italy’s Mount Ingino (near the town of Gubbio) is home to what is billed as “the world’s largest Christmas tree display.” As pictured above, several hundred colored lights and 40,000 feet (about 7.5 miles) of cabling are used to create an illuminated outline of an ornamented fir tree along a slope of Mount Ingino, a display that is approximately 1,300 feet tall and 2,600 feet across at its widest point. The tree (whose base is said to be almost as wide as the town itself) stretches from the “last stone houses of Gubbio” up to the Basilica of Saint Ubaldo, which houses the 160-by-80-foot star that tops the tree.

The Biggest Christmas Tree (Bella umbria)

Last updated:   19 December 2009

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