Walt Disney World is the world's most popular theme park resort, and sprawls across a 47 square mile site close to Orlando, Florida. Its biggest draws are its four theme parks - the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom - all of which rank in the top 10 theme parks in the world. Two water parks (Disney's Typhoon Lagoon and Disney's Blizzard Beach), the Downtown Disney entertainment district, several golf courses and a variety of activities are also on offer. Visitors can choose from a bewildering array of themed hotels, designed to suit varying budgets.

Park History

The success of the original Disneyland quickly led to an ugly urban sprawl building up around its Anaheim site. Frustrated, Walt Disney secured a much larger site in Florida for his next project. When Disney announced his vision for the site in 1965, it included plans for a model city dubbed EPCOT (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). After his death a year later, the focus switched to the Magic Kingdom and a handful of hotels, which opened in October 1971. A watered-down Epcot eventually opened in 1982, and was followed by Disney's Hollywood Studios in 1989 and Disney's Animal Kingdom in 1998.