A question that has pestered me for some time: why is it that zoos are more likely to be located in a city or in a countryside depending on the country? For instance, in the United States, the vast majority of typical zoos are located in cities (safari parks and small roadside menageries, on the other hand, are more commonly found in rural areas). However, it seems that most zoos in France and the UK are located in the middle of the countryside, even if they are particularly large and well-known (like Beauval). German zoos seem to follow a more urban pattern too, while Dutch zoos seem to often be on the edge of towns and cities. Does it have something to do with how old the zoos are, or how cities developed in those countries? How do zoos get enough visitors to sustain them if they are out in the boondocks?
I guess this is time-based: old zoos were originally orientated just outside cities (nowadays they are very often in the heart due to city expanding). At that time, they were all local zoos, because there were less transport posibilities, so they had to be located very near their serving public (which was the bourgeoisie). If you look to the traditional zoos in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands: the older they are, the more they are located in a city. Probably most French and Britisch country zoos were created after WWII (Beauvall zoo opened in 1980à ?) In the 60's, new attraction parcs and zoos were created, but on the countryside because working class people got cars, could spend more money and got holidays and leisure time.
With the US, it's probably in large part attributed to how things are so spread out here, and how we don't exactly have great public transportation, especially for rural areas. I've heard that France and other European countries are better about that sort of thing, so maybe people living in an urban area in France can more easily get to those countryside zoos.
@Philipine eagle that makes sense. The newer zoos in the US tend to be more on the outskirts than older zoos, for reasons of space and ease of transportation by car. I didn’t realize that zoos were mostly newer in the UK and France, but it makes sense that they would be. It would be interesting to look more at when most zoos in the US were built. @TheMightyOrca Yeah, I agree. Rural areas are called “flyover country” in the US for a reason: nobody ever stops to visit! And our public transit outside of core cities is terrible. Still, most Americans can access the countryside via cars so I think if zoos were built out there they would still get a lot of visitors.
It probably also depends on whether or not the country has a "tradition" of smaller, privately-owned zoos. I know that in Denmark, a lot of the small zoos are essentially just privately-owned backyards that the houseowners have decided to open to the public. Private residences with yards big enough to be transformed into zoos are rarely located smack in the middle of a big city. Even if the zoo is not built next to a private house/farm, as long as it's still privately-owned, it would still be much more difficult for a family or a self-employed businessman to find a big, suitable piece of land in a densely populated area than it would be for a government committee with all of their bureaucratic advantages sorted out.
I'm pretty sure that if you charted the age of major zoos in years and the number of kilometres from the city centre of their nearest metropolis that you'd find a very strong correlation. Inner-city real estate is expensive, and large sites for modern zoos are very rare.
