Disney's Animal Kingdom is the fourth of four theme parks built at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, opened on April 22, 1998. It is the largest single Disney theme park in the world, covering more than 500 acres (200 ha), and is also the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely around animal conservation, a philosophy once pioneered by Walt Disney himself. Disney's Animal Kingdom is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, meaning they have met or exceeded the standards in education, conservation, and research. In 2011, the park hosted approximately 9.8 million guests, ranking it the fourth-most visited amusement park in the United States and seventh-most visited in the world.
The park is represented by The Tree of Life, a sculpted 145 feet (44 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) artificial tree.
Read more about Disney's Animal Kingdom: Dedication, Restaurants and Shops, Operations, Conservation Efforts, Controversy, Attendance
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or kingdom:
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.””
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 13:31,32.