Highest Number of Parks per capita in the world

[BrownStreak]

Attempting to pull a ratio for a paper I am writing for school I used rcdb.com to count the number of parks in 12 different countries in addition to five different US States. I then got the total populations of all of these locations on ask.com. I then divided the total population by the number of parks and found out something interesting...

 

The UK has the largest number of amusement parks per capita in the world (at least out of the 12 countries I sampled). There is one amusement park there for every 727,840 residents, versus the US where there is only 1 amusement park for every 2 million residents.

 

It should come as no surprise that Florida has the highest per capita number out of the states I sampled= 1 park for every 869,850 residents.

 

Every European Country I sampled beat the US for the highest numbers per capita. I got the information I needed for my paper and thought some of you on here might be interested in the results.

[darklingscribe]

Cool. How did Japan Rank?

[BrownStreak]

I didn't rank them in order- but Japan was 1 park:just under 1.1 million residents.

[robbalvey]

I think it might also be interesting to do how many parks per size of the country. I would think that both the UK and Japan would be pretty high on that list.

[BrownStreak]

^You mean the geographical size?

[Airtime&Gravity]

I'm not surprised as most other countries have many small family parks and only a few thrill parks. The United States on the other hand has many thrill parks and "few" family parks as the major parks force them out of business.

 

I am surprised that it was the U.K. though, though I expected it to rank really high, but I expected Belgium, Denmark, or the Netherlands to be number one.

[robbalvey]

^You mean the geographical size?

Yes

[BrownStreak]

^^The Netherlands was (were?) at 1 park to 820,000 residents. Denmark wasn't one of the 12 countries I sampled. I am slowly working on a few countries based on Robb's comment but the figures are not as easy to get on ask.com as population was.

[TPDave]

That's very interesting, i had a feeling the UK would come out on top because we have a lot of smaller parks (pretty much none of which i've been to).

 

I think it's important to remember that the US parks are a lot bigger with higher capacitys and arguably a lot better (Having been to virtually no US parks I can't really comment, but i'm sure some people will have an opinion).

 

But that's very interesting, thanks for posting

[ParkTrips]

^^The Netherlands was (were?) at 1 park to 820,000 residents. Denmark wasn't one of the 12 countries I sampled. I am slowly working on a few countries based on Robb's comment but the figures are not as easy to get on ask.com as population was.

going to ask.com is part of your problem. Wikipedia would make things easier

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

[dandaman]

^You mean the geographical size?

Yes

 

...Well, there goes Canada.

[texcoaster]

I think it's important to remember that the US parks are a lot bigger with higher capacitys and arguably a lot better

 

It depends on what you like. I would say that while there are more large, state-of-the-art coasters in the US in terms of numbers, I'd also say that for the overall park experience, many of the UK and European parks beat the US ones by far.

 

With a few notable exceptions, many US parks lack the charm and style of the Euro/UK parks. It's hard to compare one park to another, but I'll try:

 

For seaside traditional parks, let's looks at Blackpool/ Morey's. Blackpool has the edge for the ride package, but I've gotta give Morey's the edge for cleanliness. Even so, Blackpool's slightly seedy atmosphere and jam-packed crowds make it an experience unto itself. Verdict Blackpool.

 

Inland traditional parks, how about Lightwater Valley and Knoebel's. Both have a sort of mom-n-pop flavor with no apparent rhyme or reason for ride placement, other than "it fits here". Both have quirky, offbeat rides. I've gotta give the edge here to Knoebel's, though, for the ride package, the grove setting, and the overall atmosphere. If someone would put The Ultimate (or something like it) at Knoebel's, I'd probably move to Elysburg.

 

Major theme park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Alton Towers. This one is hard. Both have exceptional ride packages, both have exceptional settings, both are truly great parks. This one is a toss-up, and it comes down to a simple matter of preference.

 

We may be dealing with a case of "the grass is greener on the other side of the pond" here. The things that I love most about the UK/Euro parks are the things that are different from what I'm used to here in the states. Trust me, you will NEVER see a dark ride here with an animatronic woman who flashes her boobs at you! (See Robb's video of Holiday Park). There is a level of gore in the haunted rides over there that wouldn't even be attempted here. Rides like Blackpool's "Roller Coaster" that run without restraints of any kind would never be allowed to open at all in the states, and I doubt you'll ever see another steeplechase, either.

 

Of course, for those of you living over there, all that stuff is "normal" for you, and you probably like the US parks for those same differences or others. Stuff that we yanks don't notice, because to us it's "normal".

[Carnage]

^You mean the geographical size?

Yes

 

...Well, there goes Canada.

 

Canada would do pretty poorly in size or population.

 

We have what, 2 major theme parks country wide? Then a handful of smaller parks.

[dandaman]

^ 1. CW and 2. Vancouver Playland?

 

Boredom being the mother of useless calculations...

 

Going by RCDB's hopefully accurate park operating status(es?), there are 24 operating parks in Canada, including a few annual fairs. Not sure if RCDB only counts parks with at least 1 operating coaster, but no matter.

 

Considering the country's approximate population of 33,390,141 (July 2007), there is one amusement park for every 1,391,256 people.

 

Canada encompasses 3,854,085 square miles, therefore one amusement park for every 160,587 square miles. Taking away the 8.92% of it that is water, it's a 1 : 146,263 ratio.

 

...In other words, Canada's Wonderland is the "best park in Canada" for a reason -- there's not much else to choose from.

[Carnage]

^ I was thinking CW and La Ronde. Maybe Playland, but I'm not sure how big that park was. (I thought it was pretty small to be considered a major theme park)

 

Doing a calculation like this on Canada is hard considering we have alot of area with little to no population.

[dandaman]

^Exactly. The closest I could get to a more accurate portrayal was with the water. Considering something like 2/3 of the Canadian population lives in southern Ontario anyway, the whole study is an exercise in futility.

 

...Made for a good time-killer, though.

[ebl]

This is quite interesting. I wonder how the U.S. would have stacked up say, 75 years ago when there were far more parks---smaller, but more?

 

Eric

[Tanks4me05]

Well, geographically, Japan should be the highest - it's far smaller than the state of California - just one state of the united states - yet they already have HALF as much as the whole United States combined - just think for a minute on that one.

[JustLikeMe]

Whilst its an interesting statistic, as a resident of the UK I'd argue that of the 109 parks listed on RCDB, not many are proper parks - I'd consider many of them to be more static fun fairs than true parks. This may be true of many of the parks in the US as well, but as I am ultimately unfamiliar with the vast majority of US parks I can't comment.

 

As far as the argument over the differences in parks between the US and the UK is concerned I've got a couple of points I'd like to chime in with. Firstly, someone in this thread brought up Alton, and whilst I'd agree that the gardens themselves are lovely, the park has a large problem with vandalism and is generally not particularly well cared for. Also, especially over the summer months you find it full of fairly reprehensible people - for example, before they started targeting smoking in queue lines I'd often be witness to parents giving their young children (anywhere from perhaps 11-13) cigarettes. Also, over aggressive teens spitting, line jumping, shouting at each other and other guests, swearing loudly, smoking spliffs in queue lines, amongst other anti-social activities are an issue (we all have our moments but there is a time and a place) and the park seems to take absolutely no steps towards solving these issues - I've never seen anyone ejected or even reprimanded and I used to go on an almost weekly basis. I'm not sure if its just me, but I've always thought parks should have a fairly family friendly atmosphere. I've experienced this on various levels in US parks as well, but haven't come across anywhere as consistently bad as the UK parks. Another minor issue is that over the summer months Alton suffers fairly large problems concerning wasps - the Oblivion queue can be a nightmare. Most of these problems apply to the other big UK parks as well (although as a more family orientated park Chessington isn't always as bad). I'd like to add though that I do have a soft spot for these parks, Thorpe is my home park, and at Uni I'm close to Alton, but its got to the stage where i refuse to visit apart from weekdays during the off season.

 

The one other point I'd like to make is that whilst many US parks are literally a collection of rides (looking at you Six Flags), the US does have some true THEME parks, a title I hesitate to give to any of our parks here. No park seems willing to put in any real money towards theme (although with the behavior of some of our patrons I almost hesitate to blame them) which leaves the parks feeling lackluster compared to their US counterparts. I'm particularly fond of Universal Orlando, even though as a huge coaster fan it doesn't offer the biggest thrills (although Spiderman more than satisfies the dark ride lover in me!) - the entire atmosphere of the park makes the whole experience that little more special. The parks are kept astonishingly clean (at least by UK standards) and its hard to not enjoy yourself in such a fantastically presented environment. Over here you're lucky to find paint that isn't fading, theming which isn't tacky (if existent), and a single wooden queue line post free of years worth of chewing gum build up. Even Europe doesn't suffer the problem of an over saturation poorly themed parks - some of the Euro parks are beautiful and almost give the best US parks a run for their money. My father is also a huge theme park fan but will no longer visit the UK parks with me - we either have to travel to Europe or the States if we want to visit a park together because he doesn't enjoy the atmosphere over here.

 

I'll wrap this up now as I didn't envisage such a long post (rant?), and I hope no one takes this the wrong way - I don't really dislike the UK parks, I just feel that they are lacking a bit of needed attention. I also can't help wishing that one day we get a theme park with some real theming! Oh, and the re-theme of Professor Burps Bubbleworks at Chessington into the Imperial Leather Latherworks is one of the most appalling things I've seen at any park, ever. Thanks for destroying a small part of my childhood guys!

[gnewton34]

^^The Netherlands was (were?) at 1 park to 820,000 residents. Denmark wasn't one of the 12 countries I sampled. I am slowly working on a few countries based on Robb's comment but the figures are not as easy to get on ask.com as population was.

going to ask.com is part of your problem. Wikipedia would make things easier

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

 

Unfortunately Wikipedia is not a reliable source for writing papers. Anyone can update the information on the website. In my program, we have been forbidden to use any information from Wikipedia.

[ParkTrips]

that's fine, but still, instead of googling "size of the usa" and then "size of canada" and then "size of the uk" and so on, you could just find one source... such as the CIA online factbook

 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

 

(which was the source of a lot of the information on wiki)

 

Trust me, I personally would NEVER cite wikipedia (or any online document that is not a formal publication of some sort), but its a great place to start. I was just suggesting that individual searching is a waste of time when there are "one stop" sources available

[BDG]

parks per million inhabitants

 

Denmark: 2.38

Sweden: 1.44

UK: 1.37

Netherlands: 1.20

Belgium: 0.96

USA: 0.94

Japan: 0.93

Finland: 0.90

Canada: 0.84

Germany: 0.81

Australia: 0.73

France: 0.64

Taiwan: 0.39

Spain: 0.35

Italy: 0.34

China: 0.04

 

parks per 10 000 sq km

 

Netherlands: 5.90

UK: 3.44

Belgium: 3.30

Japan: 3.18

Denmark: 3.07

Taiwan: 2.79

Germany: 1.92

France: 0.71

Italy: 0.68

Sweden: 0.32

USA: 0.31

Spain: 0.28

Finland: 0.16

China: 0.06

Canada: 0.03

Australia: 0.02

 

----

 

Inhabitants and land area (land only) by cia.gov

Parks (theme parks, fun and educational centers with at least 1 roller coaster) by rcdb.com

[verticalzero]

I have found the atmosphere in UK Parks on the decline, I visited Drayton Manor in March 07 and I found there was graffiti, litter everywhere, staff slow at loading the coasters, guys jumping on and off the train when it went past and generally messing about.

 

I have not been to Alton Towers since 2002 so I can't say if the Park has improved. Last visited Lightwater Valley about 10 years ago, the "Ultimate" is not that bad, just needs some TLC to make the train bank the corners properly.

 

Thorpe Park and Blackpool seem to of stayed the same and you can enjoy yourself but there is the problem of Q jumping which I can't stand.

 

Last year I visited the following European Parks and found them all to be 2 or 3 times better than the UK ones:

 

Plopsaland

Bobbyjannland

Walibi Belgium

Walibi World (5 times in 2 years)

De Eftling (feels like I'm on a different planet, so perfect)

Heide Park

 

I have not been to any USA Parks since 2000, I visited Cedar Point and Kings Island, I found in both parks, great care is taken in the surroundings, the gardens, the manor or staff, everything about them is perfect.

 

Each country have their own style of parks and the up-keep of them is so different. The UK ones are def fading unless something happens to turn them round.

All comes down to respect and up-bringing of the generations. The young now and the below generation have less respect of anything than in my generation.

 

The re-vamp "Bubbleworks" at Chessington is typical of a UK company, Most things are sponsored by food or cleaning stuff which is quite depressing. The ride is still fun as the ending has not changed.

 

I am the sort of person who sends a letter of complaint to the parks if I have a bad day, just to give them some feedback and help with any problems which need addressing.

 

Generally I have a fun day at the Parks I visit, I try to make sure I go out of season and during the week when the schools are not on holiday. Q time is about 5 / 10 mins in Oct.

[AlmereStars]

its true that the american parks are bigger, they have to be.. just look at the population of my country (holland) and USA: 16 million against over 500 million. i'm really happy with all the parks here in holland, and they even get better every year (just ook at Toverland). I don't think that its a suprise that we (and belgium) have the most parks per 10k sq km. small but great parks! (although i'm pretty jealous of parks like Alton Towers, Cedar Point, SF magic mountain etc.)

[BDG]

USA: over 500 million.)

 

Correction: about 301 million as of July 2007.