Originally named “The Mickey Mouse Park,” and then “Disneylandia” before settling on “Disneyland,” Disney purchased 160 acres for the park in Anaheim and started construction in 1954.

Before it became the global icon known as Disneyland, Walt Disney's vision for a theme park went through several conceptual names and iterations in the early 1950s. The very first iteration was often referred to as "Mickey Mouse Park." This original concept was much smaller in scale and was planned to be built on an 8-acre plot of land directly across the street from the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Walt envisioned it as a place where fans could meet his characters and see "where Mickey lived" without disrupting the actual studio work. Another early working title used during the design phase was the "Riverside Drive Park" project. As the scope of Walt's imagination grew, it became clear that the Burbank lot was far too small for the "magical kingdom" he was designing. By the time the project moved to its 160-acre site in Anaheim in 1953, the name had evolved into Disneyland, which officially opened on July 17, 1955.