Japan’s oldest zoo opened in 1882 inside Ueno Park and became a national obsession in 1972 when China sent the first giant pandas, drawing queues around the block for decades. It is an old-fashioned city zoo, compact and cheap, where gorillas and tigers share the grounds with a seventeenth-century pagoda and a Shinto shrine. The elephants, polar bears and a serious aye-aye breeding programme fill out two gardens linked by a bridge.
Arrive at opening to see the animals before the heat and the school groups. Allow two hours, finish on the Shinobazu side and leave through the pond gate, which drops you straight into the lotus beds.
Tips
- Panda residency depends on loan agreements with China and has changed in recent years, so check the official site before promising children anything
- The five-storey pagoda inside the grounds belongs to the old Kan'ei-ji temple and dates from 1639
- The west garden around Shinobazu Pond is quieter than the east, with the aye-ayes and the kids' petting area