Chimelong Ocean Kingdom: Meet the world’s largest public aquarium
Are you a pet person? If yes, have you ever had a pet fish? After all, fish can be the perfect choice for your first pet, and all you need is a glass container, some water and fish food. However, if you are interested to have more than two fish, you would need to buy an aquarium. In fact, if you opt for a home aquarium, you will have a lot of fun while setting it up as well as maintaining it. You can also decorate it with water plants, rocks and stones. Now imagine visiting a bigger version of your home aquarium. We are talking about public aquariums, that are now spread across the globe. In fact, the S.E.A. Aquarium in Singapore is one of the widely recognised public aquariums in the world. But it isn’t the largest one. Okay, so which one is? Well, it’s located in China and is called Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. It is home to variety of marine life, diverse flora and fauna. Here’s all things interesting about Chimelong Ocean Kingdom.
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom: A bird’s eye view
First things first, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom is not only the world’s largest public aquarium (also called oceanarium), it’s also a theme park located near the Fuxiang Bay, at Hengqin, in Zhuhai region of China. It was established in November 2010 by PGAV Destinations and was open to the public in March 2014. It is part of the Chimelong International Tourist Resort and is among the top 10 visited theme parks worldwide. It is open year-round and has a whooping 12.9 million gallons of water. At present, it holds as many as five Guinness World Records under its name, one of them being world’s most expansive oceanarium.
Major attractions in Chimelong Ocean Kingdom
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom has 15 major attractions, out of which there are 3 rollercoasters called Parrot Coaster, Penguin Coaster and Jungle Coaster and 2 water rides including Polar Explorer and Walrus Splash. Besides the amusement rides, this oceanarium also offers regular animal shows such as the Dolphin Show, the Sea Lion show, the Beluga Show, the Ocean Resistance and the Musical Fountain Spectacular. The facility is also home to a Killer Whale Breeding Centre wherein nine killer whales (5 males and 4 females) imported from Russia has been living and reproducing since March 2017. The aquarium also houses a wide variety of 20,000 rare fish species alongside other aquatic animals like sharks, polar bears, snakes, dolphins, otters, whales, walruses, sea lions among others.
Other popular public aquariums
In case you don’t want to visit China, there’s no need to worry as you can visit the ones in India, such as Varkala Aquarium in Kerala, Taraporewala Aquarium in Mumbai, or the Marcs’ Aquarium near Digha, West Bengal.
If you ever get a chance to visit Singapore, you must visit the Marine Life Park, that is the second largest public aquarium worldwide and is home to species like goliath grouper and hammerhead shark.
While, if you end up in Spain, don’t forget to make your way to Oceanographic, the public aquarium that gets its water directly from the Mediterranean Sea. And guess what? It’s home to as many as 45,000 species.
There is also the famous Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, USA where over 120,000 animals from over 500 different species live in 8.5 million gallons of freshwater and saltwater. Interestingly, it was the world’s largest aquarium till 2010, until it was replaced by Chimelong Ocean Kingdom.