The Most Remarkable Zoos in the World
7 places in 6 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable zoos in the world are L'Oceanogràfic (Spain), Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (Japan) and Taronga Zoo (Australia). The list covers 7 zoos in 6 countries. Japan has the most, with 2. Last updated 13 October 2026.
A zoo or aquarium becomes remarkable on a world scale when the building and the living world inside it are conceived together. The finest are works of architecture as much as collections of animals: a vast tank that recreates a whole ocean current, a glass wall where whale sharks pass at eye level, a historic garden where animals live among palms and pavilions. What sets them apart is the scale of the habitats, the quality of the design and the moment of standing face to face with life you would otherwise never see.
The collection here leans toward the sea. L'Oceanogràfic in Valencia is part of the City of Arts and Sciences, with a roof by Félix Candela shaped like a water lily. Osaka's Kaiyukan wraps a spiral walkway around a deep central tank modelled on the Pacific, and the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium opens a giant window onto its Kuroshio Sea tank, home to whale sharks and manta rays. The Lisbon Oceanarium, built for Expo 98, rises from the water of the old docks. On land, Taronga Zoo looks across Sydney Harbour, and the Wilhelma in Stuttgart combines a zoo with Moorish-style royal gardens built for King Wilhelm I of Württemberg.
Every place here was chosen for how it looks and placed in order of beauty. Each has its own text, a photograph credited to its author and a point on the map, and the section also opens country by country on separate pages.
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 | Singapore Zoo | Zoo | Singapore | |
| 5 | Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium | Public aquarium | Japan | |
| 6 | Wilhelma | Zoo | Germany | |
| 7 | 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 Singapore Zoo
Singapore · 11 km from Johor Bahru1.405° N 103.791° E
Aungphone · CC BY-SA 4.0 Singapore Zoo opened in 1973 on a wooded peninsula reaching into the Upper Seletar Reservoir, in the green heart of the island, and it set out from the start to do without the look of cages. Its enclosures are "open": animals are separated from visitors by moats, water channels, vegetation and discreetly placed glass, so that the view is of an animal in a landscape rather than behind bars. Across its 28 hectares the tropical forest of the reservoir's edge is part of the design, and the walk between exhibits feels more like a stroll through a humid garden than a tour of a collection.
Did you know? In early 1974 a hippopotamus named Congo escaped into the Upper Seletar Reservoir and stayed out in the water for 47 days.
05 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.
06 Wilhelma
Germany · 2.8 km from Stuttgart48.805° N 9.205° E
Image by Miriam_die_Taenzerin from Pixabay Wilhelma is a zoo planted inside a royal fantasy of the Orient. Its core was never meant for animals: King Wilhelm I of Württemberg commissioned it in the 1840s as a private pleasure garden at Bad Cannstatt, on the slopes below Rosenstein Castle, with a bathhouse and residence in the Moorish style. His architect, Karl Ludwig von Zanth, drew on the Alhambra in Granada, and between 1842 and the 1860s the grounds filled with horseshoe arches, slender cast-iron columns, gilded domes and tiled courts. The name, Wilhelma, was given in 1842.
Did you know? The project began when borings in the grounds of Rosenstein Castle struck mineral springs, giving King Wilhelm I the idea of a private bathhouse.
07 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 is the most beautiful zoo 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 remarkable zoos?
- In our collection, the most come from Japan (2), Australia (1) and Germany (1).
- Which zoo has the best view?
- Taronga Zoo in Sydney stands on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour, looking across the water to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
- What is the Wilhelma in Stuttgart?
- It is a combined zoological and botanical garden laid out in the grounds of a nineteenth-century royal estate built in Moorish Revival style for King Wilhelm I of Württemberg.
- How many zoos are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 7 zoos in 6 countries. Japan has the most, with 2.