Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
African-themed animal theme park in Tampa, Florida
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is a 335-acre (136 ha) animal theme park located in Tampa, Florida, United States, with the entire park landscaped and designed around themes of Africa. Owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts, the park opened on March 31, 1959. The park has an annual attendance consistently exceeding 4 million, often ranking second among United Parks & Resorts parks behind SeaWorld Orlando.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay features many roller coasters and thrill rides, including a Dive Coaster called SheiKra, a "family-style" thrill coaster themed around cheetahs called Cheetah Hunt, a launched roller coaster called Tigris, a wood-steel hybrid hypercoaster called Iron Gwazi, Falcon's Fury (the second-tallest free-standing drop tower in North America, and one of few to tilt and face riders towards the ground), Montu, which was the tallest and fastest inverted roller coaster in the world when it opened, and Phoenix Rising, North America's tallest and longest family inverted roller coaster. The park also features several rides and attractions catered for children under the age of nine, as well as one water ride — a river rafting ride.
History
1957–1959: Busch Brewery and Gardens
Anheuser-Busch proposed acquiring land in Florida to construct a brewery with Tampa and Jacksonville as potential sites in April 1957. By June, unconfirmed rumors were reported that a $25–30 million brewery would be built in Tampa, but were initially denied by Anheuser-Busch. Anheuser-Busch made public on July 25, that it had purchased a 160-acre (65 ha) plot of land in Tampa for $320,000 to construct a $20 million brewery. The construction of the Tampa brewery coincided with the construction of a competing brewery, Schlitz, in the Tampa Industrial Park complex. August Busch Jr.
The public source identifies “Busch Gardens Tampa Bay” as african-themed animal theme park in Tampa, Florida. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Busch, Gardens and Tampa.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2743812. The Library of Congress control number is sh95008713. Authority coordinates are 28.038, -82.422. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Busch Gardens Tampa Bay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.