Updated for September 2026
The Best Zoos in Washington
How this list is ordered: by how complete our listing is — how much we hold on opening hours, ticket prices, accreditation, photographs, animals and facilities. It is a measure of our own coverage, not a judgement of the venue. We hold no visitor scores or conservation assessments, so “best” here means every zoo in Washington that qualifies for the list, fullest entry first.
Listed alphabetically
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Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma
The site occupies 29 acres and holds over 9,000 specimens of 367 species. It draws upwards of 600,000 visits a year.
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Rides and attractionsParkingDisability admission concession
Woodland Park Zoo
Zoo in Seattle
Around 900 animals of 250 species are kept, and the zoo receives over a million visitors yearly. It has taken more than 65 awards in various categories.
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Northwest Trek Wildlife Park
Zoo in Eatonville
A tram carries visitors through a 435-acre area where animals range freely, and this is the park's main draw; the separate Wild Drive route is taken by private car, passing mountain goats, bison, swans, caribou, deer and Roosevelt elk. Also kept here are cougars, wolverines, bobcats, bald eagles, grey wolves and bears of both the black and the grizzly kind.
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Cougar Mountain Zoo
Zoo in Issaquah
The site sits close to the edge of Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. Animals kept include wolves, reindeer, cranes, wallabies, macaws and cougars. Running and fundraising passed in 1990 to the Zoological Society of Washington.
Our ranking methodology
This is not a ranking. The 4 venues above are listed alphabetically by name, the same order used throughout this site. We do not collect visitor reviews, star ratings, ticket-sales figures or a conservation-impact score, so none of those exist here to rank by — “best” in this page’s title means every venue that qualifies for this list, not first-to-last by quality. If we ever add a data source robust enough to support an honest ranking, this note and the order above will change together.