In the late eighties the European Southern observatory embarked on the VLT project. Four eight-metre class telescopes to be built in the Chilean Atacama desert and to be operated both as stand-alone instruments and in combined interferometric mode. The selected site was Cerro Paranal. Construction in earnest started in the early nineties and the first 8.2-m telescope had first light in May of 1998. Since the middle of 2001 all four telescopes have been operating with high efficiency and impressive scientific output. The interferometric mode is also operational and additional auxiliary telescopes that improve the UV-plane coverage are arriving at the observatory. In this article the capabilities of the observatory are described and some of the more exciting scientific results reviewed. The next generation extremely large telescope project is presented.
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