Disney's Animal Kingdom

'''Disney's Animal Kingdom''' is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida, United States. It was the fourth park built there, and it opened on April 22, 1998. It is the largest Disney theme park in the world, covering more than . It is also the first Disney theme park to be themed around animal conservation, a philosophy once pioneered by Walt Disney himself. Disney's Animal Kingdom is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, meaning they have met or exceeded the standards in Education, Conservation and Research.

Soon after the park opened, Disney advertised the park using the fictional word "nahtazu". It is pronounced "not a zoo". It was meant to state that the park is more than just a city zoo. Disney stopped using the word in January 2006.

The symbol of Disney's Animal Kingdom is The Tree of Life, a sculpted 14-story (145-foot-tall []),  tree. The tree is man-made. The leaves are made out of resin. Tourists can walk around the whole park to see all 325 animals carved in the bark of the tree.

In 2009, the park had around 9.59 million guests, ranking it the fifth-most visited amusement park in the United States and eighth-most visited in the world.

## Themed areas
The park has eight themed areas. 

### Oasis
The Oasis is the park's main entrance. It has the guest services center and some animal habitats. Guests can see muntjacs, spoonbills, ducks, wallabies and giant anteaters, among others. The main paths lead into the park, and onto Discovery Island.

A Rainforest Cafe is also at the entrance of the Oasis, but it is outside the park boundaries. Guests can eat at the restaurant without entering Disney's Animal Kingdom, while guests entering the restaurant from within the theme park are actually exiting the park and must show their tickets to go back into the park.

### Discovery Island
Discovery Island is near the center of the park, in the middle of the Discovery River waterway. It was originally called Safari Village, as Discovery Island was the name for the small zoological park in Walt Disney World's Bay Lake. After it closed in 1999, Safari Village was renamed Discovery Island.

This is the "central hub" of Disney's Animal Kingdom, connecting almost all of the other sections of the park, except Rafiki's Planet Watch. The Tree of Life, the park's icon, is here, surrounded by animal enclosures with kangaroos, black crowned cranes, lemurs and others. The park's largest gift shops and two of its major restaurants are on Discovery Island, each with a different design theme, such as decorations based on nocturnal animals, insects and so forth. The island's other major draw is ''It's Tough to be a Bug!'', a 4-D film starring Flik and Hopper from Disney·Pixar's ''A Bug's Life''.

### Camp Minnie-Mickey
Camp Minnie-Mickey is themed as a summer camp. Here guests can meet the Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy and others. In the area's main theatre is *Festival of the Lion King*, a live stage show featuring acrobatics and musical performances inspired by *The Lion King*.

### Africa
Set in the fictional east African village of Harambe, this area has many animal exhibits. Disney's story about Harambe is that it was once part of a Dutch colony, but a peaceful revolution made Harambe independent in 1963.

### Pandora 
Pandora is inspired by the movie Avatar.

## References 
## Other websites 
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