The Warsaw Zoological Garden, known simply as the Warsaw Zoo (Polish: Miejski Ogród Zoologiczny w Warszawie) is a scientific zoo in Warsaw, Poland. Although officially created in 1928, it traces back its roots to 17th century private menageries, often open to the public.
Currently the zoo is visited by roughly 600,000 people yearly and covers an area of roughly 100 acres (0.40 km2) in downtown Warsaw, in the borough of Praga. It is home to approximately 5,000 animals of almost 500 species, many of them unique.
During World War II, Jan Żabiński, the director, together with his wife Antonina and their son Ryszard, saved more than 200 Jews from the Holocaust. [Ackerman, Diane. (2007) The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. N.Y., N.Y. ISBN 978-0-393-06172-7.]