The 20 Largest Water Parks in the World by Attendance (2026)

“Largest” gets measured two different ways in the water park industry: physical size (acres of property) or annual attendance (visits per year). Acreage claims for water parks vary wildly between marketing pages and are rarely backed by a consistent, citable source, so this list ranks by annual attendance instead, using the 2025 TEA Global Experience Index, the report published by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) with research partners Entertainment + Culture Advisors (ECA) and The Park Database, released in October 2026. Attendance figures in that report, and in the secondary reporting on it used here, are published estimates rather than audited turnstile counts.

Chimelong Water Park in Guangzhou, China led the world with an estimated 2.56 million visits in 2025, even after an 8.8% decline from the prior year. That’s roughly 560,000 more visits than Aquaventure World in Dubai, the second-place park, and the gap widens from there: six parks on this list topped 1.75 million visits in 2025, while the remaining fourteen cluster between roughly 1.1 and 1.7 million.

The Full Ranking

Ranked by 2025 attendance as reported in the 2025 TEA Global Experience Index and in secondary coverage of it, including a complete rank 1-20 list published by the Brazilian trade outlet PANROTAS; several parks are reported at the same rounded figure but appear in the sequence given by that coverage.

Who’s at the Top

Chimelong Water Park, part of the Chimelong Group’s Guangzhou resort complex, has topped this ranking for several years running and held the top spot in 2025 despite an 8.8% drop in visits. Coverage of the 2025 index linked that decline to typhoons and heavy rain during the region’s peak summer season rather than a broader drop in demand. Aquaventure World, inside the Atlantis The Palm resort in Dubai, held steady at 2 million visits; the resort is owned by Istithmar World (a Dubai World subsidiary, which bought out Kerzner International’s stake in 2007-2008) and operated by Kerzner International under a management contract, and its operator noted a growing share of guests are resort hotel visitors rather than day-trippers, which can mask swings in walk-up demand.

Three different water parks on this list share the “Aquaventure” name, which is easy to confuse: Aquaventure World at Atlantis The Palm in Dubai (#2, owned by Istithmar World and managed by Kerzner International), Aquaventure at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas (#5, 1.79 million visits), and the Aquaventure Waterpark at Atlantis Sanya in China (#10, owned by Fosun International and managed by Kerzner International). All three carry the same Atlantis brand, but Atlantis Paradise Island is a different case from the other two: Kerzner sold its stake in that resort in a 2011-2012 debt restructuring, and the property is now owned and operated by Brookfield Asset Management, with no Kerzner management role.

Thermas dos Laranjais, in the São Paulo interior town of Olímpia, grew 5.4% in 2025 to a rounded 1.95 million visits, essentially matching Therme Erding, a thermal-bath-and-water-park complex near Munich that Therme Group acquired in 2024; the two are reported one rank apart (3rd and 4th) at the same rounded figure. Brazil places three parks in the published top 20 (Thermas dos Laranjais, Hot Park, and Hot Beach), reflecting the country’s large and growing water park sector.

How This Ranking Measures ‘Largest’, and Why It’s Disputed

Water park operators and travel sites frequently call a park the “world’s largest” based on acreage, but those figures are inconsistent and hard to verify independently: Chimelong Water Park alone has been cited at anywhere from roughly 220 to 450 acres (89 to 182 hectares) depending on the source, with no single figure traceable to an audited or official measurement. Attendance, by contrast, is tracked every year by the same independent industry report, which is why it’s used here, though it comes with its own caveat: TEA’s figures are described as estimates, compiled from park and government data rather than published ticketing audits, so small year-to-year swings should be read as directional rather than exact.

The 2025 index reports that its full top 20 water parks drew 36.3 million visits combined, up 3.0% from 35.2 million in 2024, but TEA’s own press release and most English-language coverage of it name individual 2025 figures for only the top several parks plus a couple of standout growers (Siam Park, Hot Beach, Beach Park). The Brazilian trade outlet PANROTAS, however, published a complete rank 1-20 list with a rounded attendance figure for every entry; that full list is the source for ranks 15 through 20 here, since those parks don’t otherwise appear with specific 2025 numbers in the English-language coverage checked. PANROTAS’s figures are that outlet’s own rounding and translation of the underlying TEA data rather than a verbatim reproduction of TEA’s table, so treat them with the same estimate caveat as the rest of this list. Beach Park, in Aquiraz, Brazil, is sometimes discussed alongside this list because the index noted its attendance grew 16.5% to nearly 1 million visits, but reporting describes it as sitting just outside the top 20 rather than ranked within it, so it is not included here.

Notable Entries and Planning Notes

The biggest mover on the list is Disney’s Blizzard Beach, which jumped 50.5% to 1.35 million visits after Disney expanded its water park operations in 2025; it had drawn only about 897,000 visits in 2024 and wasn’t on the prior year’s top-20 list at all. Siam Park’s 26.0% jump to 1.6 million visits was the largest percentage gain among parks that were already established names, reflecting strong tourism growth in the Canary Islands, while Hot Beach grew 19.1% to 1.33 million visits.

The bottom third of the list is dominated by indoor or mixed indoor-outdoor water parks built around a resort rather than a standalone theme park: Rulantica is part of the Europa-Park resort in Rust, Germany, and Tropical Islands is a converted airship hangar in Brandenburg, both drawing visitors through colder months in a way a purely outdoor park can’t. Wet’n Wild Gold Coast is the lone Oceania entry, while Caribbean Bay (inside Everland Resort in Yongin, South Korea) and Sunway Lagoon (in Bandar Sunway, Malaysia) are the two Asian entries outside China reported in the full top 20.

For travelers using this list to plan a trip, note that Walt Disney World operates two of the entries (Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach) a short drive from each other in Florida. In Brazil, Thermas dos Laranjais and Hot Beach sit under 3 km apart in the same town, Olímpia, São Paulo, so both are realistically a single trip, while Hot Park is a separate destination in Rio Quente, Goiás, several hundred kilometers away. Figures reflect calendar-year 2025 attendance and will shift with the next edition of the index.

Explore more: Browse more water parks.

The World’s Largest Water Parks by Attendance FAQs

What is the largest water park in the world?

By annual attendance, Chimelong Water Park in Guangzhou, China is the most-visited water park, with an estimated 2.56 million visits in 2025 according to the TEA Global Experience Index. By claimed acreage, various sources also cite Chimelong as the largest, though published area figures for it range widely (roughly 220 to 450 acres) and aren’t backed by a single verifiable measurement.

Is ‘largest water park’ measured by size or by visitors?

Both measures are used in practice, but they don’t always agree and acreage figures are often marketing claims rather than audited measurements. This list ranks by annual attendance, which is tracked consistently by an independent industry report (the TEA Global Experience Index).

Which water park has the most visitors in the United States?

Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon at Walt Disney World was the most-visited U.S. water park in 2025, with about 1.76 million visits, ahead of Universal’s Volcano Bay (1.6 million) and Aquatica Orlando (1.4 million).

Why are there multiple water parks named ‘Aquaventure’?

Three Atlantis resorts each brand their water park ‘Aquaventure’: Aquaventure World at Atlantis The Palm in Dubai, Aquaventure at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and the Aquaventure Waterpark at Atlantis Sanya in China. The Dubai and Sanya resorts are both managed by Kerzner International (for owners Istithmar World and Fosun International, respectively), but Atlantis Paradise Island is a separate case: Kerzner sold its stake there in 2011-2012, and the resort is now owned and operated by Brookfield Asset Management. All three are separate properties with separate attendance figures and are easy to confuse with each other.

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Photo: AshleyLee319 / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.