The Oldest Zoos in the World: 7 Historic Parks Still Open Today

Some zoos are worth visiting for the animals alone. A rare handful earn the trip for their architecture: the gates, pavilions, and tree-lined avenues that have stood for two or three centuries. These are the institutions that grew out of royal menageries and Enlightenment-era science, and most of them still open on an ordinary day ticket. Rankings of the top 10 oldest zoos in the world tend to feature the same European names, founded between the mid-1700s and the late 1800s, and the seven below are the ones travellers are most likely to actually reach.

One caveat first: “oldest” is a slippery title. Private menageries existed for centuries before any of these admitted the public, and several sites still dispute their exact founding dates. The years here reflect when each place is generally credited as starting.

1. Tiergarten Schönbrunn, Vienna, Austria (1752)

Vienna holds the record. Tiergarten Schönbrunn opened in 1752 as a private imperial menagerie in the gardens of the Habsburg summer palace, commissioned by Emperor Francis I, and admitted the public from 1779. Nearly three centuries later it is still running, which makes it older than most countries on the modern map. Its centerpiece is an octagonal Baroque pavilion, now a café where visitors sip coffee under a painted ceiling while the enclosures fan out around them, and the wider palace complex has held UNESCO World Heritage status since 1996.

The zoo has not rested on that heritage. It keeps around 700 species, maintains a respected breeding program, and remains one of the few places in Europe to house giant pandas, with a cub born on site in 2007. Early on a weekday is the calmest time to arrive, before families fill the panda enclosure.

2. Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France (1793)

Paris claims the oldest civil zoo still operating, and it owes its existence to a revolution. After the monarchy collapsed in 1793, the royal menagerie at Versailles was broken up and its animals moved to the Jardin des Plantes, soon joined by exotic creatures seized from street entertainers. Two centuries on, the result is compact, green, and unmistakably Parisian.

This is not a place for sweeping savannahs. Tucked into the 5th arrondissement, it sets red pandas, snow leopards, and a historic reptile house among rose beds and wrought-iron glasshouses. It works best as a calm interlude on a day spent around the Latin Quarter, ideally combined with the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution next door.

3. London Zoo, England (1828)

The English word “zoo” was coined here. London Zoo, in Regent’s Park, began in 1828 as a scientific collection for members of the Zoological Society of London, an organization founded two years earlier by Sir Stamford Raffles, and it did not admit the general public until 1847. Its list of former residents reads like a catalogue of British childhood.

Guy the Gorilla drew crowds for decades. Long before him, a Canadian black bear named Winnie, brought over during the First World War, so charmed a young Christopher Robin Milne that his father reused the name for a famous honey-loving bear. The grounds double as an architectural tour, from the 1934 Penguin Pool to the soaring Snowdon Aviary. Tickets booked online, plus an early arrival, help beat the school groups.

4. Dublin Zoo, Ireland (1831)

Dublin Zoo, opened in Phoenix Park in 1831, ranks as the third-oldest scientific zoo still in operation, behind Vienna and Paris. It started modestly, with a single wild boar and a small donation of animals from London, before growing into one of Ireland’s favorite days out.

A long-running story holds that one of its lions became the roaring MGM mascot. The claim is hard to verify, yet Dublin did breed lions successfully from the 1850s, so it is not entirely far-fetched. The modern park gives its animals room across African Savanna and Asian Forest zones, all set inside one of Europe’s largest enclosed urban parks. Mornings are quietest, and the surrounding parkland makes for an easy follow-on walk.

5. Berlin Zoological Garden, Germany (1844)

Germany’s first zoo, Zoo Berlin, opened in 1844 and now holds a record few can challenge: more species than any other zoo on the planet, comfortably past a thousand. For sheer variety, nothing else compares.

Berlin also knows how to create a star. Knut, a polar bear cub born in 2006 and hand-raised by keepers after his mother rejected him, became a worldwide sensation before his death in 2011. The ornate Elephant Gate, with its pagoda roofs and stone elephants, is one of the city’s most photographed entrances, though much of the zoo is a careful reconstruction after heavy wartime damage.

6. Melbourne Zoo, Australia (1862)

Outside Europe, Melbourne Zoo carries the distinction of being Australia’s oldest, founded in 1862 as the Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens. Its design borrowed from the European pleasure garden, with broad, tree-lined avenues that keep the place feeling like a park even on busy days.

Its early decades were hard on the animals, as was true almost everywhere at the time, but the modern zoo has committed heavily to conservation, running breeding programs for native species such as the helmeted honeyeater and the eastern barred bandicoot. The walk-through lemur and kangaroo areas, where the animals approach on their own terms, are a highlight. The zoo sits a short tram ride from the centre in Parkville, beside the Carlton Gardens.

7. Philadelphia Zoo, United States (1874)

America’s first true zoo was chartered in Philadelphia in 1859, then forced to wait. The Civil War intervened, and the gates did not open until 1 July 1874, which is why two dates often appear beside its name. By charter, at least, Philadelphia takes the title.

Its Victorian origins remain visible, from the original gatehouses to a founder’s cottage older than the zoo itself by more than a century. The headline modern feature is Zoo360, a network of clear mesh trails overhead that let big cats and primates travel above the footpaths; a tiger padding through a tunnel above visitors’ heads is a genuine surprise. The zoo pairs neatly with a day around Independence Hall, and weekdays in spring or autumn dodge both the heat and the crowds.

How to string several into one trip

There is no need to pick just one. Most of these zoos sit in cities worth visiting in their own right, so they link together easily. A few practical pointers help:

• A European rail loop works well. Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London are short train hops apart and mostly central.
• The big names reward online booking. London and Vienna in particular are cheaper and quicker to enter with a timed ticket.
• Early starts pay off. Soft morning light suits the historic enclosures, and an early arrival beats the late-morning school crowds.

The deeper appeal runs past any founding date. Visitors have walked through these same gates for the better part of two centuries, and while the animals and the science keep changing, the simple pull of the place does not. That continuity is what makes the oldest zoos worth a detour.