Official Description

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Visitor Reviews

This review submitted by NIELS JOHS LEGARTH IVERSEN,
September 2000

The Copenhagen zoo was founded by the ornithologist Niels Kjærbøl after a visit to the Berlin zoo, and it opened already in september 1859. This means that it not only is the largest zoo in Denmark, but also the oldest Danish Zoo by a wide margin. It is placed at Roskildevej, a major road leading westwards from the town centre, and bus 29 from the Central Station is going right to the entrance. There is a park south and another north of the road, and throughout its history the zoo has been slowly encroaching on these. However it is doubtful whether this will be allowed in the future, so space is one of the main problems for this zoo. When it opened it occupied just a small area close to the present entrance, at the north side of the road. A small Apis temple stands as the last remnant from this fase. A later, very conspicuous addition was the large Chinese tower, from where you can get a nice overview over the entire area. Behind the tower there is a lake with a gibbon island, and a couple of years ago a wetland path was added. When you continue westwards, you can follow the outer route past the bear grottoes to the musk oxen enclosure. It is quite logical that the Copenhagen zoo has a nice collection of these, with Greenland as part of Denmark. If you continue this way you pass by the giraffes, wild boars and some rather cramped birdcages, before you end up at a round building with big cats. Another more central route from the lake passes a monkey house and the elephant house before it ends up at the quite new Tropical House and the chimp house (the gorillas have been moved to Givskud in Jutland). These last two buildings are among the few installations of the zoo that seem modern, – the rest has a more traditional style (I guess that could be said about Copenhagen as a whole). I mentioned the elephants (indian): the Copenhagen zoo has had great success in breeding these animals, not least because of its potent bull, which came long ago as a gift from the thai king to the Danish royal couple. The last route westwards from the lake passes by the lions, the camels, kangaroos and the so called pampa, where several kinds of south-american animals live together. A tunnel under Roskildevej leads to the southern section (called Søndermarken, the southern fields). Here there are somewhat larger enclosures for antelopes, white rhinos and some other animals, including okapis. Okapis has been an on-and-off story in this zoo. One regrettable incident happened when an okapi was scared to death by an opera concert in the nearby park! Apart from this the Søndermark houses a children’s zoo with farm animals and petting goats. The Copenhagen Zoo has a membership scheme with an attractive zoo magazine as part of the deal. It also has a homepage (www.zoo.dk), but in my opinion some mad techno freak has gone berserk when creating it. Close to the entrance there is a restaurant. The visitor count hovers around 1 million per year.

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