Fairmount Park - Definition and Overview

Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of the largest municipal parks in the world, at over 9,100 acres (37 km²). This figure includes all parkland within the city limits, as all 65 city parks are considered part of Fairmount Park and overseen by the Fairmount Park Commission, but the park proper does occupy nearly half that area, at over 4,100 acres (17 km²) on both banks of the Schuylkill River and Wissahickon Creek.

The park grew out of the Lemon Hill estate of Henry Pratt, dedicated to the public by the City Council on September 28, 1855. The site of the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the location of the first zoo in the United States, the Philadelphia Zoo (1874), Fairmount Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 7, 1972.

External links

• Fairmount Park Commission, City of Philadelphia (http://www.phila.gov/fairpark/)
• Philadelphia Zoo (http://www.phillyzoo.org)