Knuthenborg Safaripark is a

safari park A safari park, sometimes known as a wildlife park, is a zoo-like commercial drive-in tourist attraction where visitors can drive their own vehicles or ride in vehicles provided by the facility to observe freely roaming animals. A safari park ...

on the island of

Lolland Lolland (; formerly spelled ''Laaland'', literally "low land") is the fourth largest island of Denmark, with an area of . Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of Region Sjælland (Region Zealand). As of 1 January 2022, it has 57,618 inhabitant ...

in the southeast of

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. It is located 7 km (on Rte 289) to the north of

Maribo Maribo is a town in Lolland Municipality in Region Sjælland on the island of Lolland in south Denmark. It was the municipal seat of the former Maribo Municipality, until 1 January 2007, and then it became the seat of the current Lolland Muni ...

, near

Bandholm Bandholm is a small port town and parish on the coast of northern Lolland, Region Zealand, Denmark. On 1 January 2022 it had a population of 476, and is located to the northwest of Knuthenborg Safari Park and Maribo. From Bandholm there is ferry s ...

. It is one of Lolland's major tourist attractions with over 250,000 visitors annually, and is the largest safari park in northern Europe. It is also the largest natural playground for both children and adults in Denmark. Among others, it houses an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

aviaries An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds, although bats may also be considered for display. Unlike birdcages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flight cages. Avi ...

, a drive-through safari park, a monkey forest (with

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ba ...

tamarin The tamarins are squirrel-sized New World monkeys from the family Callitrichidae in the genus ''Saguinus''. They are the first offshoot in the Callitrichidae tree, and therefore are the sister group of a clade formed by the lion tamarins, Goel ...

s and

lemur Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...

s) and a

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

enclosure. Knuthenborg covers a total of , including the Safaripark.Knuthenborg:
Oplevelser til en hel dag...og meget mere!
' Retrieved 10 April 2015. The park is viewable on

Google Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expa ...

History

The park is set in

Knuthenborg Knuthenborg is a manor house located north of Maribo on the Danish island of Lolland. Originally known as Årsmarke, it was first mentioned in 1372. Today's building was completed in 1866 to a design by Henrik Steffens Sibbern. The medieval mano ...

, previously known as the medieval manor of Årsmarke, which was Denmark's largest private estate. In 1714, it became part of the new

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

of Knuthenborg. The park has its origins in 1867 when Eggert Christoffer Knuth (1838-1874) built a sturdy wall around his property with stones fished out of the

Smålandsfarvandet Smålandsfarvandet ( lit. "The small-land waterway") is a body of water in Denmark. It connects Storebælt in the west with Storstrømmen and Guldborgsund in the east and serves as a waterway for coastal traffic, yachts, and other small craft. It i ...

.Heidi Pfeffer and Ove H. Nielsen (ed.), ''Lolland-Falster: historier in landskabet''. 2012, Lolland-Falsters Historiske Samfund, pages 122–123. . . He then hired English landscape architect

Edward Milner Edward Milner (20 January 1819 – 26 March 1884) was an English landscape architect. Early life and career Edward Milner was born in Darley, Derbyshire, the eldest child of Henry Milner and Mary née Scales. Henry Milner was employed at C ...

who, on the basis of plans completed in 1870, laid out a park for his world collection of rare botanical plants as well as the many

rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

s which are also a great attraction to tourists. There are several hundred species of exotic shrubs and trees. In 1926, the park became protected under a preservation order. An enclosed zoological garden was established in 1950 adjacent to Swan Lake (Svanesøen) with 70 deer. In 1969, Count Adam W. Knuth added the first exotic animals to the park;

antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mammals ...

plains zebra The plains zebra (''Equus quagga'', formerly ''Equus burchellii''), also known as the common zebra, is the most common and geographically widespread species of zebra. Its range is fragmented, but spans much of southern and eastern Africa south of ...

s and

ostrich Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There are ...

es were the first to be acquired from

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

followed by

white rhino The white rhinoceros, white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros (''Ceratotherium simum'') is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists ...

s. It is now a famous zoo of Denmark.

Features

Over the past 40 years, the number of animals in the park has grown to about a thousand of more than 40 different species. Antelopes,

Bactrian camel The Bactrian camel (''Camelus bactrianus''), also known as the Mongolian camel or domestic Bactrian camel, is a large even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. It has two humps on its back, in contrast to the single-humped drom ...

giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...

s, white rhinoceroses, and plains zebras are some of the animals on view in the Safaripark. The park features include an

(21 of them), and tiger enclosure. Most of the Safaripark is

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...

-friendly, though the

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

is accessible only by those in a vehicle (own car or a safari bus). An adventure playground affords a play area for children. A railway line operates in summer between the entrance of the park to Maribo. In the areas with

domestic animal This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation. This includ ...

s, visitors can touch the animals if they allow it. The threatened

Arctic wolf The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada's Queen Elizabeth Islands, from Melville Island to Ellesmere Island.https://ecore ...

, also known as the polar or white wolf, is housed in the park where it breeds regularly.

Tourism

In 2012, there were some 223,000 visitors to Knuthenborg Safari Park representing a 10% increase over the previous year. The increase has been ascribed to new attractions and facilities for children."Stadig flere besøger Knuthenborg"
''TV2 Øst'', 30 October 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2013. The Safari Park was placed 29 in the official list of Danish Tourist Attractions in 2011. The park is open to visitors every day during the spring, summer and fall, but closed in winter.
Knuthenborg.dk. Retrieved 10 May 2015.

References

External links

Official site
{{authority control Safari parks Tourist attractions in Denmark Parks in Denmark Zoos in Denmark Tourist attractions in Region Zealand Buildings and structures associated with the Knuth family