Which Theme Park is largest (in Acres)?

[Bowser]

Went to Alton Towers yesterday for the first time in about 15 years and forgot how massive it is (didn't help the SkyRide was closed) though it's so beautiful we didn't mind.

But it got me thinking, which theme park is the biggest in the world? I had a search but feel like some of those which claimed to be larger (eg Disney parks) were including all the hotels etc. I just mean in terms of the park itself, is there anywhere bigger than Alton Towers?

 

[emoo]

Eyeballing Europa Park on Google Maps it looks around the same area as Alton. Difference being instead of partially accessible gardens that cannot be developed further, Europa has rides throughout. Also has monorails to travel within the park and not just to get to the parking or hotels.

Animal Kingdom is huge. Much of that space is for the Safari where guests are driven round.

 

[Bowser]

Eyeballing Europa Park on Google Maps it looks around the same area as Alton. Difference being instead of partially accessible gardens that cannot be developed further, Europa has rides throughout. Also has monorails to travel within the park and not just to get to the parking or hotels.

Animal Kingdom is huge. Much of that space is for the Safari where guests are driven round.

Google seems to claim Alton Towers is 910 acres versus Europa park 230 acres but hard to know what is included in each (and haven't been to the latter so have no first hand experience). Looking at the satellite maps Alton looks bigger to me but not 3 times the size.

We walked the long way across the Gardens at Alton from Nemesis which alone seem gigantic!

 

[Indy]

I don't care how factually incorrect it might be, no park has ever felt larger than Kolmården. I'm convinced I walked to another town trying to get back to Wildfire.

But also, front to back, Cedar Point has to be just about the longest park in the world. It's a solid mile from the front entrance to the Steel Vengeance entrance.

 

[Changa]

Wasn't Six flags Great adventure declared the largest by acreage once their safari trail was merged with the park?

 

[Inverting_Thrills]

The largest operating park is Animal Kingdom at 580 acres.

If I'm not mistaken, the largest ever was Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.

 

[Bowser]

It actually says on the Alton Towers website that the park area is 550 acres.

A lot of Animal Kingdom is the animal enclosures right? I think Alton still wins on a technicality

 

[CanobieFan]

Cedar Point has to be just about the longest park in the world. It's a solid mile from the front entrance to the Steel Vengeance entrance.

Great Adventure from Nitro to Medusa definitely feels like a mile too

 

[Indy]

Great Adventure from Nitro to Medusa definitely feels like a mile too

I thought this was a pretty good observation. Definitely felt believable, so I did a quick check. It's not quite as far as I would have guessed...





Not trying to hijack this thread and get more into length than physical size.

 

[Bowser]

Not trying to hijack this thread and get more into length than physical size.

Ha! Not hijacked at all, it's all interesting.

We walked from Galactica to Th13teen via the Gardens which took almost 30 minutes as the valley is pretty deep (and it was hot). Google only offers alternative routes which come in at 0.8 miles (they definitely would be quicker as we discovered on the way back due to being flat).

It does feel like each time you move to another area you're putting in half a mile.

 

[davidm]

I'm liking the "parks with a stupidly long walk between/to major attractions" direction this thread has taken...

Here's that Wildfire trek (but the hills, oh the hills are not accounted for)

 

[emoo]

For those who visit this park wanting all coasters, just do the one near the front straight away. Once the Wildfire marathon begins you'll never hike back for it until its too late.

 

[TilenB]

For those who visit this park wanting all coasters, just do the one near the front straight away. Once the Wildfire marathon begins you'll never hike back for it until its too late.

Unless you're a cred whore like me and are told that the Zierer kiddie in the front was only closed due to rain in the morning and you keep going back and forth between Wildfire and that, just to never see it reopen during the day.

 

[Matt N]

Alton Towers actually isn't nearly as large as you'd think, if you look at it on Google Earth. A very broad-brush covering of everything that could be the theme park itself came out at 184 acres:

And even a broad-brush covering of the whole feasible resort area, including the hotels, car parks, field car parks and even some fields and houses that I'm not even 100% sure are part of Alton Towers came out at 501 acres:

I have absolutely no idea where Alton Towers' 900 acre figure comes from, or even the 500 acre figure I sometimes hear given that the second estimate covers large areas of land that I'm not even sure are part of Alton Towers...

As for the answer to the question; I'd always heard Disney's Animal Kingdom and Six Flags Great Adventure given as answers to this.

Animal Kingdom, when I made two polygons to broadly set out what appeared to be the full theme park area, added up to 301 acres:

And when I added an extra polygon for the car parks, the overall feasible area of Animal Kingdom added up to 386.6 acres:

In the case of Six Flags Great Adventure, a broad brush estimate of the theme park area itself, including a little bit of car park, comes to 201 acres:

And when adding the whole resort, including Hurricane Harbour, the Wild Safari (I wasn't sure if this was part of the theme park itself or not; the map implied that it wasn't) and the car parks, the total feasible area of Six Flags Great Adventure's whole resort comes to 808 acres:

So my findings would suggest that the largest in terms of the theme park alone is Disney's Animal Kingdom at 301 acres, but the largest in terms of the whole resort is Six Flags Great Adventure at 808 acres.

Unless, of course, there are larger parks that I'm missing...

 

[Bowser]

The plot thickens!

Weird because i've been to Great Adventure and it didn't feel particularly big. But i think that's due to the layout, with Alton having a somewhat unique layout due to it's history where you rarely travel anywhere close to direct to your location, whilst most theme parks are purpose built to accommodate footfall. Also emphasised by the fact they've always had a monorail system to transport you to the entrance.

If you're up for further investigation i read Disneyland Shanghai claims to be almost 1000 acres, no idea what that encompasses though.

 

[Sandman]

The plot thickens!

Weird because i've been to Great Adventure and it didn't feel particularly big. But i think that's due to the layout, with Alton having a somewhat unique layout due to it's history where you rarely travel anywhere close to direct to your location, whilst most theme parks are purpose built to accommodate footfall. Also emphasised by the fact they've always had a monorail system to transport you to the entrance.

There is indeed a lot of perception in it. Most high level theme parks recognise and take this into consideration too.

For example, you could have a busy 'main street' that sprawls across the same distance as a quiet, narrow, winding path. The winding path will often feel like a much longer journey in this scenario.

That's probably why Wildfire at Kolmarden feels like such an epic journey. If you had other rides and themed attractions dotted through the route, your journey would feel more gradual because you would end up somewhat distracted by passing attractions etc.

 

[Matt N]

Alton Towers could also feel bigger than it is because due to the Gardens and Towers, you are often taking routes to get to attractions that are not the most linear route. For instance, Thirteen and Galactica are quite close to each other as the crow flies, but due to the layout of the “main” paths, so to speak, they feel like they’re pretty far away from each other because you wander past pretty much everything else in the park to get between the two.

I’d say I had a similar perception at Busch Gardens Tampa. That felt like a pretty big park, but that could have been because the path layout meant that I was often wandering a long way to get between attractions that were technically quite close to each other.

I think what @Sandman says about density of attractions along a route also rings true in some regards. At Alton Towers, there are quite considerable swathes of path with not a single attraction along them, whereas at a park like Europa Park, the paths are very densely packed with attractions, so the park doesn’t typically feel as big because the walks are mostly broken up by having various attractions scattered along every pathway. However, when you’re going between Wodan & Silver Star at the end of a day, it certainly feels like a pretty big park when you’re not riding any of the things along the way!