Tierpark Hagenbeck, Zoological park in Stellingen, Hamburg, Germany.
Tierpark Hagenbeck is a zoological park in Stellingen, a district of Hamburg in Germany, that displays animals in large open enclosures separated from visitor paths by water-filled moats. The grounds include outdoor areas with African elephants, tigers and giraffes alongside a separate aquarium featuring tropical fish and sharks accessed through glass tunnels.
Carl Hagenbeck opened this zoo in 1907 and introduced a new system in which animals would live without visible bars in landscapes meant to resemble their home regions. After World War II the damaged grounds were rebuilt and the Hagenbeck family expanded the concept with a tropical aquarium completed in 2007 for the centennial anniversary.
Generations of families from across northern Germany have visited this zoo and many locals recall school trips and birthday parties spent among the open enclosures. The Hagenbeck name has become so familiar in Hamburg that it is used as shorthand for a zoo outing and the grounds remain deeply embedded in the city's everyday life.
The grounds open around 9 in the morning and close earlier in winter and later in summer depending on the season, with ticket counters stopping new admissions about an hour before closing. The paths are mostly paved and a full tour through all areas takes several hours, so comfortable shoes are recommended.
The grounds still use the system of hidden moats so that many visitors do not even notice the barriers between themselves and the animals and get the impression of an open savanna. In some places flamingos and pelicans stand so close to the path that you feel as if you are standing directly in their world.
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