Who first invented zoos?

The first real zoo was established by Queen Hatshepsut in 1500 B.C. in Egypt by collecting animals from all over Africa. Later, Emperor Wen Wang of China built a zoo to show his wealth and power. Spread over 1,500 acres, it had animals from all over his empire and was named the Garden of Intelligence.



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Hierakonpolis, the capital of Upper Egypt during the Predynastic period, is the site of the world's first zoo.

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The oldest known zoological collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis, Egypt in 2009, of a c. 3500 BCE menagerie. The exotic animals included hippopotami, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats.

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Schönbrunn Zoo (German: Tiergarten Schönbrunn; also simply called Vienna Zoo) is a 17-hectare (42-acre) zoo in the city of Vienna, Austria. Established in 1752, it is the world's oldest zoo still in operation.

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The Philadelphia Zoo, located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, is the first true zoo in the United States. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, but its opening was delayed by the Civil War until July 1, 1874.

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MYTH 4: Animals in Zoos are happy. Animals in captivity across the globe have been documented displaying signs of anxiety and depression. In fact, psychological distress in zoo animals is so common that it has its own name: Zoochosis.

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Zoos do a lot for conservation. There are dedicated species survival programs which have helped species come out from the brink of extinction, good examples of that being the black-footed ferrets, the red wolves, the Przewalski's wild horse, and the California condors.

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Only in very special circumstances do zoos obtain animals from the wild, which is illegal in many nations. Thus, zoos are not in the practice of actively capturing animals in the wild from their natural habitats.

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It wasn't until 1958 that the United Nations condemned human zoos, recognizing them as a violation of human rights. The last human zoo was hosted in Brussels, Belgium, and it closed its doors that same year. This means that human zoos were in operation as recently as 60 years ago, which is a shocking fact to consider.

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Our 2023 Best Of Travel Award winner for Best Zoo in the U.S. is the San Diego Zoo! Situated in sunny San Diego's beautiful Balboa Park, this southern California zoo is renowned for its diverse collection of animals and dedication to conservation.

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During the 1850s, Maximo and Bartola, two microcephalic children from El Salvador, were exhibited in the US and Europe under the names Aztec Children and Aztec Lilliputians. However, human zoos would become common only in the 1870s in the midst of the New Imperialism period.

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The wild animal trader and circus impresario Carl Hagenbeck emerges as the godfather of the modern zoo, the first to propose enclosures without bars, realising his “panorama zoo” concept in Stellingen, near Hamburg, in 1907.

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The first zoo in the United States opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1874.

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