Disneyland Park
| Disneyland Park | |
|---|---|
| Location | Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, California, United States |
| Opened | July 17, 1955 |
| Area | 98 acres (including later expansion) |
| Theme | Fairy tales, adventure and classic Disney storytelling |
| Owner | The Walt Disney Company |
| Operator | Disney Experiences |
| Status | Operating |
Disneyland Park, originally Disneyland, is a theme park in Anaheim, California, United States, and the centrepiece of the Disneyland Resort. Opened on July 17, 1955, it is the only theme park designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, and the prototype from which every Disney park since descends. A plaque above its entrance tunnels states its premise, in Walt Disney's words: "Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy."
The park popularised the modern theme park — a single entrance, a "weenie" (Disney's word for a visual magnet) drawing guests forward, and lands themed as complete environments rather than collections of rides. Sleeping Beauty Castle, 77 feet tall, stands at its centre. Walt Disney kept a private apartment above the Main Street fire station, marked by a lamp in the window that remains lit in his memory.
History
Origins
Walt Disney traced the idea to the 1930s and 1940s, sitting on a bench in Los Angeles' Griffith Park eating peanuts while his daughters rode the merry-go-round, imagining a clean park where parents and children could have fun together. A small park beside his Burbank studio grew in his thinking into something far larger. He visited parks and fairs in America and Europe for research — Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen is often credited as an influence on Disneyland's cleanliness and atmosphere — and in 1953 presented ABC television executive with a now-famous aerial concept painting by Herb Ryman, drawn over a single weekend.
Financing came from an unusual alliance: Disney borrowed against his life insurance and sold ABC a stake in the park in exchange for investment and a weekly television series, Disneyland, which previewed the park's lands to the nation and built demand a year in advance. Construction on 160 acres of Anaheim orange groves began in July 1954 and consumed some 17 million dollars.
Opening day and after
The invitation-only opening on July 17, 1955 — broadcast live on ABC to an audience of tens of millions — was famously troubled: counterfeit tickets doubled the crowd, rides broke down, fresh asphalt melted in 101-degree heat, and many drinking fountains ran dry during a plumbers' strike. The press dubbed it "Black Sunday". The park nonetheless drew its millionth guest within seven weeks and was profitable in its first year.
Walt Disney treated the park as a work in progress — "Disneyland will never be completed," he said, "as long as there is imagination left in the world." A major 1959 expansion added the Matterhorn Bobsleds (the world's first tubular steel roller coaster), the Monorail and the Submarine Voyage. New Orleans Square, the first new land, opened in 1966 with the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean following in 1967 — the last attractions whose creation Walt personally directed before his death in December 1966.
Later decades brought Space Mountain (1977), Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (1979), Star Tours (1987), Splash Mountain (1989), Mickey's Toontown (1993) and Indiana Jones Adventure (1995). Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, a 14-acre land mirroring the version in Florida, opened in May 2019 as the park's largest expansion. The park celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2025.
Lands
- Main Street, U.S.A. — a turn-of-the-century small town street, scaled down slightly to feel welcoming, ending at Sleeping Beauty Castle.
- Adventureland — exotic jungles: the Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones Adventure and the Enchanted Tiki Room.
- New Orleans Square (1966) — the French Quarter of New Orleans, home to Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion and the private Club 33.
- Frontierland — the American frontier, with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Rivers of America.
- Critter Country (as Bear Country, 1972) — the backwoods, holding Tiana's Bayou Adventure and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
- Fantasyland — the dark rides of the classic films, the Matterhorn, and "it's a small world".
- Mickey's Toontown (1993) — the cartoon neighbourhood of Mickey and friends.
- Tomorrowland — the future as imagined in 1955 and repeatedly reimagined since, with Space Mountain and the Monorail.
- Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge (2019) — Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu.