SeaWorld San Diego
theme park
SeaWorld San Diego is a theme park in Mission Bay Park in San Diego, California. It is a marine mammal park, oceanarium, public aquarium, and marine animal rehabilitation center. It opened in 1964 as the first theme park in the SeaWorld chain. Both the park and the chain are owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts.
SeaWorld San Diego is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Adjacent to the property is the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, which conducts marine biology research and provides educational and outreach programs on marine issues to the general public.
History
SeaWorld was founded in 1964 by Milton Shedd, Ken Norris, David Demott and George Millay. The four graduates of UCLA originally set out to build an underwater restaurant and marine life show. When the underwater restaurant concept was deemed unfeasible, they scrapped those plans and decided to build a park instead, and SeaWorld San Diego was opened on March 21, 1964. With only a few dolphins, sea lions, 6 attractions and 22 acres (8.9 ha), the park proved to be a success and more than 400,000 guests visited in the first 12 months.
“SeaWorld San Diego” enters the record as theme park. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what SeaWorld, Diego and theme can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“SeaWorld San Diego” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, SeaWorld, Diego and theme provides the most credible route into that argument.
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 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1946237. Authority coordinates are 32.766, -117.227. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “SeaWorld San Diego” 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.