TOP 5 THEME PARKS

Disneyland Park is located in Anaheim, California. The theme park is owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Co. Originally and still popularly called Disneyland, the park was inaugurated on 17 July 1955 with a dedication by Walt Disney during a televised press preview and opened its doors to the general public the next day. This particular member of the Disney theme park family holds the distinction of being the only park that Walt Disney himself supervised during the phases of design and construction. The Anaheim location was re-branded “Disneyland Park” in 1998 to set the original theme park apart from the Disneyland Resort complex as a whole.

Disneyland attracts more visitors than any other theme park worldwide, with cumulative attendance of close to 600 million guests since opening day in 1955. A total of 15.9 million people visited the park in 2009, which made it the second most visited park worldwide for that calendar year.

Tokyo DisneySea is a 712,246 m² (176 acres) theme park located at the Tokyo Disney Resort, in Urayasu, near Tokyo. It is owned by the Oriental Land Co Ltd, which licenses the Disney theme from The Walt Disney Co. Opened on 4 September 2001, Tokyo DisneySea attracted an estimated 12 million visitors in 2009 to become the fifth most visited theme park worldwide. It was the second theme park to arise at the Tokyo Disney Resort, and the ninth to open among the eleven Disney theme parks worldwide. It welcomed its 10-millionth visitor within a shorter time than any other theme park in the world, only 307 days after its grand opening. This record had previously been held by Universal Studios Japan, which numbered 10 million visitors 338 days after opening. Tokyo DisneySea also holds the record for most expensive theme park ever built, with estimated cost of construction in excess of US$4 billion. Tokyo DisneySea and Tokyo Disneyland are the only Disney parks worldwide that are not owned by The Walt Disney Company.

Epcot is a theme park located at the Walt Disney World Resort, near Orlando, Florida. Rather than pure recreation, the themes of the park are international culture and technological innovation. Epcot is the second park built at the resort. It originally opened under the name EPCOT Center on October 1, 1982; the park’s name was modified twice before the present name was adopted in 1996. Epcot welcomed approximately 11 million visitors in 2009, becoming the third most visited theme park in the USA and sixth most visited in the world.

Epcot, or EPCOT, is an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow,” a pet project of Walt Disney. The founder’s original intention was that EPCOT would house twenty thousand residents and serve as a model for testing ideas in city planning and urban organization. 

Disney died before his vision could be realized. He was denied funding and planning permission to start EPCOT unless he built the Magic Kingdom first. This was only completed after his death, and the Walt Disney Company ultimately discarded the idea of running a city.

The original name was chosen to reflect the fact that EPCOT Center was built to represent the ideals and values of EPCOT the city. The park follows an hourglass shape divided into two sections called Future World and World Showcase. Both are inspired by the type of exhibit found at world fairs; in fact, during the early years, Epcot was often described as a “permanent World’s Fair.”

Construction of EPCOT Center was estimated at between US$800 million to US$1.4 billion and lasted three years. It was the largest construction site in the world at the time. Epcot covers an area of 1.2 km² (300 acres). The parking zones for buses and private vehicles cover 0.57 km² (141 acres) and can accommodate 11,211 vehicles on the paved areas; unpaved areas accommodate an additional 500+ vehicles.

Universal Studios Japan (USJ) is located in Osaka and owned and operated by USJ Co Ltd. It is one of four Universal Studios theme parks around the world. Many rides installed at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida are also found here. Most visitors to USJ are tourists from Japan or elsewhere in Asia, such as China, South Korea, or Taiwan. Goldman Sachs became the largest shareholder in the park in 2005, although Universal still holds a small minority stake in USJ.

USJ opened to the public on 31 March 2001. During its first twelve months of operation 11 million guests visited the park; no other theme park has ever received so many visitors within the first year.

Everland Resort is a theme park situated in the city of Yongin, in Gyeonggi-do province, South Korea. It is the largest theme park in South Korea. In addition to its principal attractions, Everland contains an animal-themed section with a zoo, and a water park known as Caribbean Bay. The park is run by Samsung Everland, which is a subsidiary of the Samsung Group.

This park was opened in 1976 under the name Ja Yeon Nong Won which translates loosely to “Nature Farm.” The former English name of the park was “Farmland.”