Nuremberg Zoo

At Nuremberg Zoo you spend most of the day walking through a forest. The zoo sits on the Schmausenbuck hill in the east of the city, inside the Lorenzer Reichswald, and uses old sandstone quarries, ponds and slopes as backdrops for the animals. At 65 hectares it is one of the largest zoos in Europe and the second largest in Germany. Around 300 species live here, from tigers and polar bears to dolphins and manatees. Allow plenty of time, the paths are long and often uphill.

History: from the Dutzendteich to the forest

The zoo opened on 11 May 1912 at the Dutzendteich lake, on the site of the 1906 Bavarian State Exhibition, and was modelled on Hagenbeck's park in Hamburg with landscaped enclosures instead of cages. It was not war or inflation that ended it but the Nazi rally grounds, which needed the land: the old zoo closed in February 1939 and the new one opened at the Schmausenbuck in May 1939. Almost every building was destroyed in the Second World War, and rebuilding under director Alfred Seitz was completed by the late 1950s. New enclosures have been added ever since, most recently the step-free Climate Forest Trail in 2024.

What to see

• Dolphin Lagoon and Manatee House: Nuremberg is one of only two German zoos that still keep bottlenose dolphins, a practice animal-rights groups have long criticised. Next door, the 700 m² tropical Manatee House holds Caribbean manatees, fruit bats and poison dart frogs.
• Big cat house in the rock: Built into the sandstone and entered through a tunnel, with outdoor enclosures for Amur tigers and Asiatic lions separated from visitors only by moats.
• Aquapark (2004): Polar bears, seals, sea lions and Humboldt penguins, which you can also watch underwater.
• Hoofed animals: Wide meadows with European bison, American bison, giraffes and five wild equids, including Przewalski's horses.
• Bearded vulture aviary: A walk-through aviary up to 17 metres high, opened in 2016.
• Children's zoo: Kids can feed some of the goats and sheep.

Good to know

The zoo coordinates European breeding programmes for Malayan tapirs, Caribbean manatees and babirusas. At the end of 2020 it kept 6,824 animals from 310 species. An emu that died here in 2017 aged 46 is thought to have been the oldest in human care.

Opening hours and tickets (as of October 2026)

Open 365 days a year. Until 24 October 2026: 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30); from 25 October 2026 to 28 February 2027: 9:00–16:30 (last entry 16:00). Adults pay €21, teenagers (14–17) €15.80, children (4–13) €9.80, a family ticket costs €47.50. A VGN or DB train ticket gets you a discount. Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult, and dogs are not allowed. Dolphin presentations run daily at 11:00 and 15:00.

Getting there

Tram lines 5 and 11 run from the main station to the entrance at Am Tiergarten 30, and bus 45 links the zoo with the U-Bahn and S-Bahn.

Tripto tip

Plan half a day to a full day. Arrive early, build your route around the dolphin presentation and wear proper shoes for the steep forest paths. The Documentation Centre at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, where the first zoo stood, is only a few kilometres away.