On April 24, 2015, Zwift launched Watopia. Here was their message to the small community of beta testers:
Together we’ve ridden 1 million miles (@1.6M km), 333K laps and climbed a total of 44M feet (@13.4M meters) on Zwift Island. That’s like climbing Mt Everest 1.5K times! We think that’s a big deal, so today we’ve launched our new course on the next isle to celebrate. Welcome to Watopia, your new home on Zwift!
As you can see, we’ve successfully moved and we’re ready for everyone to conquer our 10k course filled with fabulous vistas, bridges, and all new terrain. We’re still under construction so please be patient as we work to bring you the best ride possible (helmets encouraged!)…
See the full game release notes from Jon Mayfield posted April 24, 2015 >
A few fun facts:
- It took the beta testers 5 months to ride 1 million miles, while in December 2017 the community rode over 700,000 miles in just 24 hours in a major fundraiser event. But in 2021, Zwifters rode 1.04 billion miles on the platform – that’s an average of 2.85 million miles per day!
- The “Zwift Island” referenced is Jarvis Island, the first Zwift course. The honey-hunting bear in Titans Grove in named Jarvis in honor of this original Zwift map.
- When first launched Watopia had only one 9.1km route, known today as the “Hilly Route“. The next Watopia expansion was Ocean Boulevard on December 30, 2015. Today Watopia is home to 88 routes (including some running-only and event-only routes).
- The Richmond, Virginia UCI Worlds course was released on September 1, 2015, in between the first two Watopia updates.
- Today Zwift hosts 212 routes spread across 12 maps (in order of release): Watopia, Richmond, London, Innsbruck, New York, Bologna, Yorkshire, Crit City, France, Paris, Makuri Islands, and Scotland.
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