Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens
A 133-acre city-owned zoo built on an old aerodrome — and the bones of its predecessor are still out there if you look.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Los Angeles offline.
The LA Zoo replaced Griffith Park Zoo the same year it opened (1966), and remnants of that earlier zoo survive in Griffith Park, about two miles south of the current site. Species count has been deliberately cut from 400 to around 280 so animals can live in larger, naturalistic groups — you notice the difference. The site has a strange layered history: aerodrome, then Rodger Young Village, then zoo.
What to look for
- Remnants of the original Griffith Park Zoo, preserved about two miles south in Griffith Park
- The LAIR (Living Amphibians, Invertebrates, and Reptiles), opened 2012
- Elephants of Asia, the large naturalistic elephant habitat opened in 2010
Located in Griffith Park; owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Los Angeles, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Los Angeles pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Los Angeles
- Hollywood Walk of Fame2,850 names pressed into pink terrazzo underfoot — actors, inventors, fictional characters, all at six-foot intervals for 1.3 miles.
- Dolby TheatreThe red carpet runs up these stairs every awards season — where Hollywood officially crowns its year.
- SoFi StadiumA million-square-foot canopy embedded with 27,000 LED pucks bright enough to be seen from planes descending into LAX.
- Hollywood SignA 1923 real-estate billboard that refused to come down — and ended up owning the word "Hollywood" itself.
- U.S. Bank TowerLA sold the sky above a fire-gutted library to fund its own rebuilding — and got its second-tallest tower in the bargain.
- Rose BowlA century-old sunken oval where the 1994 World Cup Final was settled — and the 2028 Olympics will return to do it again.