Enlargement of the Budapest Zoo Starts in February

The enlargement of the Budapest Zoo starts at the beginning of February. The now 10.7 ha facility gets another 6.5 ha territory, and as a result its area gets almost as big as it used to be at the time of its inauguration. Within the confines of the enlargement a huge glass house is to be built, in which the fauna of the former Pannonian Sea will be displayed.

According to the plans the enlargement of the Budapest Zoo starts in February; the CEO of the facility, Miklós Persányi gets the keys of the closed amusement park at the beginning of next month. The now 10.7 ha facility gets another 6.5 ha territory, and as a result its area get almost as big as it used to be (18 ha) at the time of its inauguration. Those rides of the amusement park that are national monuments – like the rollercoaster, the carousel, the cave railway and the tale boat – will stay put. A huge glass house is to be built in the new territory, in which the fauna of the former Pannonian Sea will be displayed. The zoo now has 1 million visitors annually.

History of the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden

The Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden located in Városliget (City Park) is the oldest zoo in Hungary; it was built in 1866. Until the 1950s this was the only similar facility in the country; and it still has the widest range of species and the biggest number of animals. At the time of its inauguration only 500 animals lived here, now this number is more than 10 thousand. In the 1800s mainly the fauna of the Carpathian Basin was displayed, but the zoo had some exotic animals as well, like a giraffe, monkeys and parrots. From the end of the 19th century several ethnical groups introduced themselves to the visitors, like the Singhaleses, the Sioux or the Lapps. This time the zoo had 2000 species. In 1907 the capital became the owner of the zoo, and several reconstructions took place: new enclosures and artificial rocks were built. The zoo got several new animals, e. g. from hunter Kálmán Kittenberger. During the World War I some exotic species died due to feeding problems, and during the World War II the zoo suffered severe damages. But by the 1950s it became one of the most modern facilities of Europe again. The general assembly of Budapest decided to expand the zoo using the territory of the to-be-closed amusements park in 2012.