The Most Remarkable Modern Zoos in the World
5 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable modern zoos in the world are L'Oceanogràfic (Spain), Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (Japan) and Taronga Zoo (Australia). The list covers 5 modern zoos in 4 countries. Japan has the most, with 2. Last updated 13 October 2026.
A modern zoo is built around the animal's world rather than the visitor's walkway. Since the late twentieth century the most ambitious institutions have turned to the sea, where acrylic panels many centimetres thick made it possible to stand beneath whole reef and open-ocean communities. Architecture followed: these are buildings designed as landmarks in their own right, placed on waterfronts and harbours so that the setting becomes part of the experience.
L'Oceanogràfic in Valencia, part of the City of Arts and Sciences, is the largest aquarium in Europe, its entrance crowned by a shell-like roof inspired by Félix Candela. Osaka's Kaiyukan is organised around the Pacific Ring of Fire, with visitors spiralling down around a central tank home to a whale shark. Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium faces the East China Sea and keeps whale sharks and manta rays in its vast Kuroshio Sea tank.
Taronga Zoo brings a different kind of setting: its terraces climb a hillside above Sydney Harbour, with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge across the water. The Lisbon Oceanarium, built for Expo '98, sits on a pier in the Tagus estuary, and its galleries surround one great central tank that stands for a single shared world ocean.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | L'Oceanogràfic | Public aquarium | Spain | |
| 2 | Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan | Public aquarium | Japan | |
| 3 | Taronga Zoo | Zoo | Australia | |
| 4 | Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium | Public aquarium | Japan | |
| 5 | Lisbon Oceanarium | Public aquarium | Portugal |
01 L'Oceanogràfic
Oceanográfico
Spain · 6 km from Valencia39.453° N 0.348° W
Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Oceanogràfic is an aquarium that is worth seeing before you look into a single tank. Its entrance buildings are crowned by thin concrete shells curved into hyperbolic paraboloids, the saddle-shaped surfaces that the Spanish-Mexican engineer Félix Candela made his life's work; he designed the complex in 1997, at the age of 87, with Alberto Domingo and Carlos Lázaro. The largest of the shells opens like a water lily, its petals touching the ground at only a few points, and its edges are so fine that the whole roof seems folded from paper rather than cast. It is a late and very pure statement of the principle behind all his work: that geometry, not mass, can make concrete stand.
Did you know? It is the only major building of Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences not designed by Santiago Calatrava.
02 Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan
Japan · 8 km from Osaka34.654° N 135.429° E
663highland · CC BY 2.5 Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan opened in 1990 on the Tempozan waterfront of Osaka Bay, and at the time it was the largest public aquarium in the world. Its conceptual and exhibit design came from Peter Chermayeff of the Cambridge Seven Associates practice in the United States. The building announces itself from a distance: a tall block in three bands of colour meant to evoke the union of earth, water and fire, with a mural of fish painted on the outer wall by the designer's father, the English-born designer Serge Chermayeff.
Did you know? The name Kaiyukan was picked by TV personality Emiko Kaminuma on the naming committee, although it had received only a single public vote.
03 Taronga Zoo
Australia · 4.1 km from Sydney33.843° S 151.241° E
istolethetv · CC BY 2.0 Taronga Zoo occupies one of the most enviable pieces of land in Sydney: a steep, wooded slope on the northern shore of the harbour at Mosman, looking straight across the water to the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the towers of the city. The name is said to come from an Aboriginal word meaning "beautiful view", and the setting delivers it.
Did you know? From 1999 to 2014 Taronga cared for three leopard seals rescued sick or injured from New South Wales beaches, at the time the only ones held by any zoo.
04 Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium
Japan26.694° N 127.878° E
Image by Yukaloha from Pixabay The reason to come is a single wall of water. The Kuroshio Sea, the aquarium's main tank, is 35 metres long, 27 metres wide and 10 metres deep, holds 7,500 cubic metres of seawater and is viewed through an acrylic panel 8.2 by 22.5 metres and 60 centimetres thick – the largest such panel in the world when the building opened in 2002. Named after the warm current that sweeps past the Ryukyu Islands, it is stocked with the open-ocean giants of these waters: whale sharks gliding slowly across the glass, manta rays banking beneath them, and schools of fish that turn the whole tank into one moving surface. Standing in the dim hall in front of it feels less like looking into a tank than like looking out of a submarine.
Did you know? In 2020 its researchers became the first to raise shark embryos to birth in an artificial uterus, hatching two deep-sea lanternsharks after five months.
05 Lisbon Oceanarium
Oceanário de Lisboa
Portugal · 6.3 km from Lisbon38.764° N 9.094° W
Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Lisbon Oceanarium was built for Expo '98, the world's fair that created the riverside district of Parque das Nações, and it has outlived the exhibition to draw around a million visitors a year. The architect, Peter Chermayeff, set the building on a pier in the middle of an artificial lagoon, so that it seems to float on the water like a moored ship; its angular silhouette has often been compared to an aircraft carrier. The watery approach is part of the design: you cross to the aquarium as if boarding a vessel.
Did you know? The Oceanarium stands on the former site of Cabo Ruivo, Lisbon's old seaplane airport on the Tagus estuary.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most remarkable modern zoos in the world?
- On our list, L'Oceanogràfic (Spain) ranks first, followed by Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (Japan) and Taronga Zoo (Australia).
- Which country has the most modern zoos in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from Japan (2), Australia (1) and Portugal (1).
- What is the largest aquarium in Europe?
- L'Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain, opened in 2003 as part of the City of Arts and Sciences, is the largest aquarium in Europe. It presents marine life from the world's main seas and oceans in separate buildings.
- Which aquariums keep whale sharks?
- Whale sharks are kept by only a handful of aquariums. Among the best known are Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan and Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan, and Georgia Aquarium in the United States.
- Why is the Lisbon Oceanarium built around one central tank?
- The Oceanarium, designed by Peter Chermayeff for Expo '98, uses a single large central tank to express the idea that the world's oceans form one connected body of water. Habitats representing different oceans are arranged around it.
- How many modern zoos are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 5 modern zoos in 4 countries. Japan has the most, with 2.