Kittenberger Kálmán Plants and Wildlife Park is the country zoo in Hungary with the longest standing traditions. It is the most favoured destination of tourists in the Central Transdanubian Region, situated merely in a distance of 15 kilometres from the Lake Balaton, and can be reached from downtown Veszprém in a short walk. The gates of the Zoo, which provides unforgettable experiences for young and old and has special natural conditions, opened on 1 August 1958. The Zoo was built with huge efforts of social cooperation in a mere five months.

The Zoo bears the name of Kálmán Kittenberger, famous Hungarian Africa traveller, zoologist, hunter and author.

The Zoo consists of two parts, one in the Fejes Valley, the other in the adjacent Gulya Hill.

The picturesque Fejes Valley area houses traditional zoo animals originating from exotic habitats like large felidae, huge Kamchatka brown bears, vividly coloured water fowl, and real curiosities such as playful prosimians from Madagascar, the really special Gelada baboons, always curious South-American coati and the adorable small panda.

One of the children’s favourite places, the custom designed and built Kid Jungle and Terrarium is also found in the Fejes Valley, where adventuresome little kids can climb and crawl as they wish, may try the Sloth Path, climb into the animal transport container, but they also may take a rest in the Parrot Club, or slide down on the covered slide from there. The playground is bordered by terrariums where visitors may have a look at the exotic reptiles across the glass walls.

Most recent developments are found on the upper part, on the so called Gulya Hill, such as one of the most beautiful and largest African Savannah runs in this country where zebras, giraffes and the three member white rhinoceros family can be admired.

Chimpanzee World, a unique complex in Europe both in terms of design and topics, was built in the neighbourhood of the Savannah run, which reverberates currently from the sounds of two chimpanzee teams. In the inner room only a glass wall separates visitors from the chimpanzees, while the huge external run is bordered by a water trench.

The Zoo puts special emphasis on the environmentally sound education of the future generations.

Böbe monkey’s school education and exhibition house, furnished to meet the professional requirements of the age houses summer camps, extracurricular sessions and courses, while visitors are expected to see an exhibition dealing with current nature conservation issues in the exhibition hall.

Beside seeing interesting animals, spectacular feeding actions, petting pens and organised events make the offer of the Zoo more colourful.

Our Zoo is a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), the Association of Hungarian Zoos (MÁSZ) and participates actively in international nature conservation campaigns. The Zoo takes a role in species saving (EEP = European Endangered species Programme) and husbandry (ESB = European Studbook) programmes.

Visitors may encounter the following species in the Veszprém Zoo covered by EEP: black-capped squirrel monkey, Gelada baboon, South American tapir, Western chimpanzee, white rhinoceros, Siberian tiger, ruffed lemur and giraffe. Our zoo keeps the following species listed in the ESB: ring-tailed lemur, Carpathian lynx, Linnaeus’s two toed sloth and black stork.

Beside multilingual educational activities the Zoo also holds that nature conservation and animal protection were important issues, welcomes children to educational sessions with various programmes, organises outdoor environmental sciences and biology classes and summer camps.