Are There Zoos in Afghanistan?

Yes -- one. Kabul Zoo in the capital is Afghanistan's only zoo, and the only venue this directory lists for the country: opened in 1967 with a focus on native Afghan wildlife, and still drawing hundreds of visitors a day as of 2025. The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advises against all travel to Afghanistan altogether, so this guide is written for research rather than trip planning.

What not to miss

Featured location Kabul Zoo Kabul, Afghanistan The public gate is on Asmayi Road, facing the traffic police headquarters. Roughly a million people visit each year. The director is Aziz Gul Saqeb.

Kabul Zoo is Afghanistan's only state-run zoological park, and by 2025 it was still drawing hundreds of visitors a day to see its mammals, reptiles, birds and fish. Its history is inseparable from the country's own. During the civil war of the 1990s, shelling wrecked the aquarium, combatants took the deer and rabbits for food, and a rocket killed a 25-year-old elephant named Hathi. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996 they initially considered a zoo incompatible with their version of Islam, and kept it open only after a zookeeper cited Kabul University research showing that Muhammad had kept pets.

The zoo's most famous resident, the lion Marjan, survived a hand grenade thrown into his den in 1995 and became a symbol of the country's endurance before he died in 2002; he is buried at the zoo. In April 2017 the zoo took in four white lions rescued from a smuggling attempt, and by 2025 its keepers were breeding wolf cubs, markhor, leopards, jackals and eagles, with some destined for release back into the wild.

Where animals live, the air is fresh. They deserve peace and should not be disturbed.

Getting there

The zoo sits on the bank of the Kabul River, next to Deh Mazang Circle, with its public entrance on Asmayi Road, opposite the Kabul Traffic Police Headquarters. It currently covers 7.1 hectares (18 acres), with a reported plan to expand it to 29 hectares (72 acres).

Other wildlife nearby

Afghanistan's zoo count begins and ends with Kabul, but its wild spaces hold species the zoo doesn't. As of a May 2025 report, officials counted around 149 endangered species in the country -- birds, reptiles, fish and native plants, with 60 bird species at particular risk -- and had intercepted the trafficking of more than 26,000 animals in the previous year, releasing them back into the wild. The snow leopard, the Marco Polo sheep and several goose species were named among those nearing extinction.

Two national parks protect much of what's left. Band-e Amir, about 75km northwest of Bamyan, became the country's first national park in 2009 and is recognized as an Important Bird Area, home to Himalayan snowcocks, Hume's larks, white-winged snowfinches, Afghan snowfinches and Eurasian crimson-winged finches. Wakhan National Park, established in 2014, covers the entire Wakhan district of Badakhshan Province in the northeast; its roughly 10,910 sq km hold the snow leopard, lynx, wolf, brown bear, stone marten, red fox, Pallas's cat, ibex, Marco Polo sheep and urial.