This list ranks water parks by published annual attendance, the only measure that allows stand-alone parks in different countries to be compared directly. Figures come from the 2025 TEA Global Experience Index, the 20th annual edition of the report published by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) with research partners Entertainment + Culture Advisors and The Park Database. The numbers count visits, not unique visitors, and TEA describes them as estimates built from operator data, tourism-board statistics, and other industry sources rather than audited box-office counts.
Chimelong Water Park in Guangzhou, China, led the field with an estimated 2.56 million visits in 2025, roughly 560,000 more than second-placed Aquaventure World at Dubai’s Atlantis The Palm, which drew 2 million. Third place was a genuine tie: Brazil’s Thermas dos Laranjais and Germany’s Therme Erding both reported 1.95 million visits. Past the top three the gap narrows quickly — the 14th park on this list still drew more than 1.3 million visits, showing how tightly water park attendance clusters compared with the wider spread seen among the largest theme parks.
The Full Ranking
Figures below are published estimates for calendar year 2025, from the 2025 TEA Global Experience Index; rank order follows attendance from high to low, with ties shown at the same position.
| # | Water Park | Location | 2025 Visits (published estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chimelong Water Park | Guangzhou, China | 2.56 million |
| 2 | Aquaventure World (Atlantis The Palm) | Dubai, UAE | 2.0 million |
| 3 | Thermas dos Laranjais | Olímpia, Brazil | 1.95 million |
| 3 | Therme Erding | Erding, Germany | 1.95 million |
| 5 | Aquaventure (Atlantis Paradise Island) | Nassau, Bahamas | 1.79 million |
| 6 | Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon | Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA | 1.76 million |
| 7 | Therme Bucharest | Bucharest, Romania | 1.7 million |
| 8 | Universal’s Volcano Bay | Orlando, Florida, USA | 1.6 million |
| 8 | Siam Park | Tenerife, Spain | 1.6 million |
| 10 | Aquaventure Waterpark (Atlantis Sanya) | Sanya, China | 1.55 million |
| 11 | Hot Park | Rio Quente, Brazil | 1.475 million |
| 12 | Aquatica Orlando | Orlando, Florida, USA | 1.4 million |
| 13 | Disney’s Blizzard Beach | Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA | 1.35 million |
| 14 | Hot Beach | Olímpia, Brazil | 1.336 million |
Why Chimelong and the Atlantis Parks Lead
Chimelong Water Park has held the top spot in TEA’s rankings for well over a decade, helped by Guangzhou’s subtropical climate, which keeps the park viable for most of the year, and by its position inside the larger Chimelong resort alongside a theme park, hotels, and zoos that funnel visitors between attractions. At roughly 300,000 square meters, it is large enough to absorb big daily crowds without the bottlenecks that cap attendance at smaller parks.
The Atlantis brand places three water parks in this ranking — Aquaventure World in Dubai, Aquaventure at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and Aquaventure Waterpark at Atlantis Sanya in China — but they are no longer under one operator. Kerzner International still manages the Dubai and Sanya properties for their owners (Dubai World’s Istithmar World and China’s Fosun International, respectively). Atlantis Paradise Island is a separate case: Brookfield Asset Management owns the resort, Kerzner’s management contract there ended, and the hotel now operates under a long-term franchise agreement as part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, even though its water park has kept the Aquaventure name. Each of the three resorts still bundles its water park with a hotel stay, so some of their attendance reflects hotel guests using the water park as an included amenity rather than day-trippers buying a standalone ticket — a shift TEA’s 2025 report notes specifically for the Dubai property, where more guests stayed at the adjoining resort instead of visiting the park alone.
How the Ranking Works, and Where the Numbers Get Fuzzy
TEA’s figures are published estimates, not independently audited gate counts. The methodology draws on operator-reported statistics, financial filings, tourism-authority data, and in some cases mobile-location analytics, and TEA cautions that the numbers measure visits rather than unique individuals — a guest who returns twice in a year, or who crosses from a resort’s water park to its theme park and back, can be counted more than once.
The tie between Thermas dos Laranjais and Therme Erding at 1.95 million is reported as an exact match in the source data, not a rounding artifact, and it is one of two close calls in this list — Universal’s Volcano Bay and Spain’s Siam Park are also tied, at 1.6 million. Because small swings in reporting or a single slow season can reorder parks within a few hundred thousand visits, rank changes outside the top two or three are best read as approximate rather than definitive.
Notable Entries and What This Means for Planning a Visit
Brazil places three parks in the top 14 — Thermas dos Laranjais and Hot Beach in Olímpia, and Hot Park in Rio Quente — all drawing on naturally heated water from underground thermal sources (the Guarani Aquifer at the Olímpia parks, geothermal springs at Rio Quente), which keeps water warm enough for year-round operation despite Brazil’s cooler winter months. The parks differ in how they treat that water once it reaches the pools: Thermas dos Laranjais publishes ozone-based treatment for its pools, Hot Beach uses chlorine gas, and Hot Park markets its pools as supplied with untreated thermal water free of chlorine and other chemicals, relying instead on the springs’ constant flow to keep the water fresh.
Disney contributes two Florida parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, and Europe supplies three entries in total. Two of those, Therme Erding and Therme Bucharest, are indoor thermal complexes that stay open through winter — a different business model from the open-air parks that otherwise fill this list. The third, Siam Park in Tenerife, is an outdoor park that instead relies on the Canary Islands’ subtropical climate to draw crowds year-round, closer to Chimelong’s approach than to the German and Romanian thermal parks.
For trip planning, the practical takeaway is that the biggest parks by attendance are also the ones most likely to feel crowded during peak season — Chimelong during Chinese school holidays, the Orlando parks around US spring break and summer, and the European thermal parks on winter weekends when outdoor alternatives close. These figures don’t capture wait times directly, but a park drawing well over a million annual visits in a shorter operating season tends to see longer lines than its total attendance alone would suggest.
Explore more: See all water park rankings.
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Most Visited Water Parks in the World FAQs
What is the most visited water park in the world?
Chimelong Water Park in Guangzhou, China, was the most visited water park in the world in 2025, with a published estimate of about 2.56 million visits, according to the TEA Global Experience Index.
How is water park attendance ranked?
Rankings use annual visit counts published in the TEA Global Experience Index, compiled by the Themed Entertainment Association from operator data, tourism statistics, and other industry sources. The figures are estimates of visits, not unique visitors, and are not independently audited.
Are all three Atlantis water parks run by the same company?
No. Kerzner International manages the Atlantis resorts and their Aquaventure water parks in Dubai and Sanya, China, but not the one on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. That resort is owned by Brookfield Asset Management and has operated under Marriott International’s Autograph Collection since Kerzner’s management contract there ended, even though its water park still carries the Aquaventure name.
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Photo: AshleyLee319 / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.