Portal:Hong Kong/Selected article/2007/December

Ocean Park Hong Kong is a theme park in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island. The marine-themed amusement park covers the area of Wong Chuk Hang and Nam Long Shan, and is located in Hong Kong. Public can go to Ocean Park by taxi or Citybus. The park, ranked seven in 'The World’s Most Popular Amusement Parks’ by Forbes in June 2006, had 4.38 million visitors in the fiscal year 2005/2006. It covers an area of 870,000 square metres. The different parts of the park are connected by a gondola lift system (or cable car system), as well as the world's second longest outdoor escalator.

The theme park currently has over 14 rides and other attractions such as aquariums. Besides housing two roller coasters, Ocean Park also features a Giant panda exhibit, a jelly fish and shark aquarium, as well as a four-story aquarium displaying more than 2000 fishes. The official mascot of Ocean Park is "Whiskers"—a waving sealion. Besides being an amusement park, Ocean Park Hong Kong also operates observatories, well developed laboratories, an education department and a Whales And Dolphins Fund. Ocean Park Hong Kong was the first institution in the world to have success in artificial insemination of bottle nose dolphins, and developed numerous new breeds of goldfish.