The tobacco plant is an important crop and model organism, and there is a widespread interest in improving its agronomical properties. Unraveling its genome is necessary for understanding and predicting its biological properties and to ultimately contribute to breeding or engineering efforts for creating new varieties. Here, we discuss the key motivations behind the sequencing of its genome and the current state of genome sequencing efforts, as well as how it has been put to use. We finally speculate on what genomic trends relating to tobacco may be of interest in the near future.