Kagoshima City Hirakawa Zoo, Zoo in Hirakawa-chō, Kagoshima, Japan

Kagoshima City Hirakawa Zoo is a zoo in Hirakawa-chō, Kagoshima, with an amusement park on the grounds. It covers 314,000 m² and keeps 125 species and 1,000 animals, including Masai giraffes in the African savanna zone and koalas in the Australia zone. The Goinogawa river flows along the eastern side of the site.

The zoo descends from the Kamoike Zoo, opened in 1916 by Kagoshima Electric Tramway on the site of a Shimazu family villa; it was Japan's fourth zoo and became city-run in 1928. A tram line cut the grounds in two in 1960, prompting a move: construction at Hirakawa began on 5 April 1971, and the park reopened there on 14 October 1972 with 142 species and 601 animals.

The zoo's name appears in five white Japanese characters, "ひらかわ", mounted across the pink entrance arch. The 1984 arrival of Queensland koalas, the first in Japan alongside Tama and Higashiyama, prompted the recording of a soft-serve ice cream song, "Koala Konnichiwa", and the "Koala Ondo" tune. The park also breeds local species such as the Amami rabbit, a special natural monument, and the Lidth's jay.

The zoo opens at 9:00 and closes at 17:00, and it shuts only from 29 December to 1 January. By train, take the Ibusuki-Makurazaki Line to Goino Station and walk about 20 minutes; by bus, the Kagoshima Kotsu service bound for the zoo leaves Kagoshima Station in roughly 60 minutes. From central Kagoshima by car it is about 40 minutes.

In 1984 the zoo, together with Tama Zoo and Higashiyama Zoo, became one of the first in Japan to receive Queensland koalas; 16,000 people came on the opening day. A sixth-generation koala was born here in May 1997, and in 2018 two koalas arrived in an exchange that sent two white tigers the other way.