About Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park

Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park

Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park, known in Chinese as Dalian Laohutan Haiyang Gongyuan and commonly called Tiger Beach Ocean Park, is an ocean theme park at 9 Binhai Middle Road in Zhongshan District, Dalian, Liaoning Province, on the city's southern Yellow Sea coast. It is described by the Dalian municipal government as the largest scenic spot on the south of the city and, in its publicity, as China's largest modern coastal ocean park, covering about 1.18 million square metres with more than 4,000 metres of coastline. Park construction began in the 1980s, the park formally opened in 1992 after a comprehensive redevelopment launched in 1991, and on 8 May 2007 it was approved as a national 5A tourist attraction — one of the first batch of 5A sites in China, and, in its listings, the only marine theme park among them.

Its venues include the Polar Pavilion, built in 2002 across about 36,000 square metres and counted among China's earliest and most complete polar-animal displays; the Coral Pavilion, described as Asia's largest coral-reef aquarium; the Bird-Singing Forest, one of China's largest semi-natural aviaries, with more than 2,000 birds; a cross-sea ropeway dating from 1987; and the sculptor Han Meilin's 35.5-metre tiger sculpture that gives Tiger Beach its landmark. With close to two million visitors a year, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification, and a place in China's first 5A cohort, Laohutan is Dalian's signature seaside attraction and a benchmark for the Chinese ocean-park industry.

The Name: Tiger Beach and a Folk Legend

The name Laohutan — Tiger Beach — comes from a local folk legend, according to the park's guides, though the legend is retold in several variants. The beach's identity is then made concrete by sculpture: Han Meilin, one of China's best-known sculptors, created a tiger group on the shore standing 35.5 metres in scale, which has become the park's emblem and Dalian's photographic landmark. The tigers are not living animals on the beach but a permanent artistic statement of the place's name, and visitors encounter them before any of the park's living animals.

The name also carries a practical distinction: Dalian has two well-known ocean attractions, and only this one is Tiger Beach. Dalian Sun Asia Ocean World, in Xinghai Park on the western side of the city, is a separate, later aquarium complex; Laohutan in Zhongshan District is the older, larger, coastal park on the southern shore. Keeping the two apart is essential to any accurate Dalian itinerary.

Building the Park: From 1980s Beach to 1992 Opening

Tiger Beach's development began as a seaside scenic area rather than as a zoo. Park construction began in the 1980s, with the cross-sea cableway following in 1987 — a date that predates the park itself and shows that the coast was already being developed for tourism. The decisive step came in January 1991, when the Dalian municipal government set up headquarters for the comprehensive reconstruction of Tiger Beach Paradise, opening the prelude to full redevelopment. In August 1990 construction had already begun on a dolphin show hall, built by the Dalian Scenic Area Administration Office and the Hong Kong Dongbao Entertainment Company, with a 3,500-square-metre site, a 2,700-square-metre building, a 327-square-metre performance pool with breeding and training pools, 1,500 spectator seats and an investment of two million yuan — described as the mainland's first permanent dolphin performance venue.

The park formally opened in 1992, the year of Deng Xiaoping's southern tour and of accelerating tourism development across China, and it grew through the 1990s and 2000s by adding specialist pavilions inside the original seaside footprint. In 2002 it was rated a famous tourism brand in China; in 2005 it began work towards 5A status; and on 8 May 2007 the National Tourism Administration approved it as a national 5A tourist attraction. A 2017 serious warning from the National Tourism Administration, with a six-month rectification deadline, reported in ChinaWiki's history of the park, is a reminder that even first-batch 5A status is conditional and subject to re-inspection.

Scale, Coastline and Setting

The park's area is consistently given as 1.18 million square metres, including a sea area of about 53,000 square metres in the detailed municipal listing, with a winding coastline of more than 4,000 metres. That scale — a park that is itself a stretch of coastline, not merely a site beside one — distinguishes Laohutan from inland aquariums. The southern coast of Dalian is a series of rocky bays and headlands, and the park strings its pavilions along that coast, linked by the ropeway and by coastal paths, so that the sea is a continuous backdrop to the animal displays rather than a distant view.

Its address on Binhai Middle Road, the coast road, places it within a short bus or taxi ride of the city centre: guide listings give bus routes 2, 4, 30, 403 and 404 to Laohutan stop, and about fifteen minutes by taxi from Dalian's railway station area. The municipal listing gives the park's address formally as No. 9 Binhai Middle Road, Zhongshan District, Dalian.

The Polar Pavilion

The Polar Pavilion is the park's core venue and, in its own account, the first venue in China to display polar marine animals and polar experiences. Built in 2002 with an investment of hundreds of millions of yuan, it covers about 36,000 square metres and its main building is shaped like a blue giant whale. Its display is described as one of the most complete ranges of polar animals in China and one of the largest in scale: Antarctic penguins, polar bears, Arctic foxes, Arctic wolves, beluga whales, walruses, northern sea lions and sea otters feature in its sections, organised into areas such as Antarctic Penguin Island, the Arctic Wolf House and the Polar Bear Pavilion.

The pavilion's importance is historical as well as zoological: 2002 predates most of China's polar ocean parks, so Laohutan's polar displays were among the first to bring Antarctic and Arctic species to a Chinese public at this scale. Its whale-shaped architecture and the later addition of a Happy Theatre-style performance venue, where walruses and sea lions perform, make it the park's most photographed building after the tiger sculpture.

Coral Pavilion, Ocean Pavilion and Sea Animal Hall

The Coral Pavilion is the park's large-scale marine-biology venue, mainly displaying coral-reef biota, and is described as China's largest coral museum and, in the candidate record, as Asia's largest coral-reef aquarium, with more than 200 species. Its displays of coloured coral reefs, reef fish and invertebrates are complemented by diving performances, including water ballet and mermaid shows described in city guides. The Ocean Pavilion, or sea animal hall, presents dolphins and other marine mammals in performance and display, and a separate venue presents the social life of wild walruses, sea lions and fur seals.

With more than 300 species and tens of thousands of marine organisms and polar animals across its venues, the park's living collection is among the largest in any Chinese ocean park. Adult tickets in published listings, at 210 yuan including the Polar, Coral and sea-animal pavilions, Bird-Singing Forest and Happy Theatre, reflect a combined-ticket model: the park sells a day's circuit of pavilions rather than entry to a single aquarium hall.

Bird-Singing Forest and the Cross-Sea Ropeway

The Bird-Singing Forest, also rendered Bird Forest or Niao Yu Lin, is one of the park's most distinctive venues: the largest semi-natural artificial birdcage in China, in which birds fly freely around visitors rather than sitting behind bars. It holds more than 2,000 birds, and its programming includes parrot shows and a peacock flight display billed as peacocks flying to the south-east. It functions as the park's aviary at a scale few zoos attempt, and as a green, wooded counterweight to the concrete and water of the pavilions.

The cross-sea ropeway, dating from 1987, is described in city guides as the longest sea cableway in the country, carrying visitors over the bay for views of the coastline and the park from above. With a 4D theatre, ocean cruises, a pirate village, a sea-animal interactive square where dolphins play with tourists, and the Happy Theatre combining sitcom-style performance with animal acts, the park deliberately mixes animal display with rides and shows — the theme-park model that sets it apart from a conventional aquarium.

Recognition, Management and Visitors

Laohutan's honours track its growth: famous tourism brand in China in 2002, first-batch national 5A attraction in 2007, and successful certification to ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management, both noted in the municipal listing. Its visitor numbers are given as more than two million, and in the municipal text nearly two million, tourists from home and abroad each year — figures that place it among the most visited single attractions in north-east China.

Its municipal description summarises it as a modern marine theme park that displays marine culture, highlights the characteristics of Dalian — known in Chinese tourism as Bincheng, the coastal city — and integrates marine animals, marine-life display, marine-animal performance, marine amusement and marine popular-science education. That five-part formula is the park's own account of what a 5A ocean park should be.

Place in Dalian and in China

Three decades after its 1992 opening, Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park remains the benchmark against which later Chinese ocean parks are measured: an early mover in polar display, a first-batch 5A site, and a park that is also a piece of Dalian's coastline. Its tiger sculpture, its whale-shaped Polar Pavilion, its coral reef, its free-flying bird forest and its cross-sea ropeway together compose an attraction that is part aquarium, part zoo, part seaside resort — and, in the scale of its coast and its collection, still the largest modern coastal ocean park that China claims.