page_title: Basel Zoo
section_title: Gamgoas
hierarchical_section_title: Basel Zoo / Exhibits and attractions / Gamgoas
caption_attribution_description: English: Crocodile enclosure at Zoo Basel
context_page_description: Zoo Basel is a non-profit zoo in the city of Basel, Switzerland. Its official name is Zoologischer Garten Basel — or in English: Basel Zoological Garden. Basel residents affectionately call it Zolli. Its main entrance is just outside Basel's downtown strip of Steinen and extends in the Birsig stream valley to Basel's city border with Binningen, Basel-Country.
  Zoo Basel is Switzerland's oldest and largest zoo. With over 1.8 million visitors per year, it is the most visited tourist attraction in Switzerland with an entrance fee.
  Zoo Basel was ranked as one of the fifteen best zoos in the world by Forbes Traveler in 2008 and in 2009 as the seventh best in Europe by Anthony Sheridan from the Zoological Society of London.
  The zoo had the first Indian rhinoceros birth in a zoo, as well as the first greater flamingo hatch. It has had repeated breeding success with animals including cheetahs, okapi, pygmy hippopotamuses, and flamingos. Every Somali wild ass in zoos worldwide is related to the population in Basel, where this species' zoological breeding program was started.
  Zoo Basel is undergoing the most expensive expansion in its history.
context_section_description: Gamgoas is part of the Etosha theme area, but it refers mainly to the lion and crocodile house. Gamgoas's literal meaning in the local language of the Etosha people is "the place where the lions are."
  In the Gamgoas house are two colonies of termites, one chameleon, five Nile crocodiles, several dozen East African cichlids (fish), a semi-large information exhibition, and three lion observation windows. A large window at the Nile crocodile enclosure allows visitors to see the crocodiles under water and to be within an inch of them.
  On June 20, 2006 several Nile crocodiles hatched for the first time in the zoo's history. Two of these new crocodiles grew up in the zoo and are now among the five Nile crocodiles at Zoo Basel.
caption: Nile crocodile enclosure
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