How Big Is Disney World? Compare Its Size in Miles, Acres, Kilometers, and More!

How big Disney World is (Disney World in Orlando, not Disneyland in California) boils down to combining the size of the four major theme parks that encompass it. Disney World is often thought of as its own entity, but it actually includes Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.

Combined, Disney World is a jaw-dropping 47 miles², 121.7 km², or 30,080 acres. That’s an astronomical size and the 17 million visitors that flock to Disney World’s theme parks each year rarely see all of it, even if they stay for a week.

Alone, the individual parks that make up Disney World are more understandable in terms of size. It’s hard to imagine spending a few days in the hot Florida sun, trying to see every last inch of 30k acres. However, it’s a little easier to take in the Animal Kingdom, or the Magic Kingdom.

How Big is Disney World Versus Disneyland?

Compared to Disney World, the whole of Disneyland, including both of its parks (and the parks within the parks), totals just 500 acres, a paltry grain of sand next to the mega-proportions of its big brother. Technically, there are six parks in Disney World, though you can probably break the parks within parks thing down further.

Disney World’s individual parks are more comparable to Disneyland. Fortunately, for Disneyland, it’s still a very popular theme park, drawing in millions of visitors per year. So, the size of the park certainly isn’t a detractor.

Disney World Versus Universal Studios

The two theme parks that are immediately comparable are Universal Studios and Disney World since they are both located in and around the Orlando, Florida area. Universal Studios features three parks—Universal Studios, Volcano Bay, and Island of Adventure.

All told, the three theme parks cover roughly 840 acres, 2.8% of the total land coverage of Disney World and all of its associated parks. By itself, 840 acres is huge and it will certainly take the average person an entire week to thoroughly explore it. When you compare it to Disney World though, it’s not even close.

There are three Universal Studios and, if you combine the parks in Orlando, Japan, and California, the total comes to 2,100 acres—7% of Disney World.

Disney World Versus Sea World

Sea World is the 10th most visited theme park in the United States and, though it’s often thought of as an Orlando, Florida park, actually sits outside of the city. The entire park covers 200 acres, .6% of Disney World.

Though it may not be as big as Disney World, or its sister park in San Antonio, Texas, Sea World features the tallest and fastest rollercoaster across all of the theme parks throughout the Orlando area—the Mako.

Parks Throughout Disney World

Once upon a time, a single theme park was more than enough to attract visitors through the spring and summer seasons and maintain activity in the fall and winter. Nowadays, all of the major theme parks have multiple, smaller parks within them. Disney World is no exception.

Officially, Disney World has four parks, though including the water parks makes it a total of 6. You have to include the water parks anyway if you want to get the full scope of Disney World’s size. The square miles and square kilometers are rounded up appropriately.

Disney’s Magic Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom is one of the oldest and smallest of Disney’s parks. It’s only 142 acres in size but still remains one of the most popular destinations. It contains 27 rides and 7 restaurants and, despite its smaller size, is more than enough to keep a family entertained for more than a day or two.

Within the Magic Kingdom are several zones (that whole park within a park thing again). These zones include Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Frontierland, and Fantasyland.

• 142 acres
• .22 miles²
• .57 km²

Disney’s Epcot Center

Epcot is actually an acronym that stands for the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow. It’s the second largest park within Disney World and features the iconic geosphere that’s renowned across the world. Epcot has more of a science and space-travel theme to it and features ‘neighborhoods’ rather than parks.

Across the four neighborhoods of World Showcase, World Discovery, World Nature, and World Celebration, there are 10 rides in total.

• 300 acres
• .47 miles²
• 1.22 km²

Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios features some of the newer theme park attractions at Disney World, including Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission. In all, there are 17 rides and the park covers 135 acres.

Hollywood Studios is one of the most visited theme parks in the world, with millions of visitors flowing through the park each year.

• 135 acres
• .21 miles²
• .54 km²

The Animal Kingdom

This is the largest of the many Disney World parks and for good reason. Maintaining animals requires a lot of space, especially for the ones that need to graze or just need to get out and have a good run from time to time. However, there are only 9 rides in the Animal Kingdom. Though they are excellent rides, it’s clear that the main attraction here is meant to be the animals.

• 580 acres
• .91 miles²
• 2.4 km²

Typhoon Lagoon

There are 12 attractions in Typhoon Lagoon, Disney World’s first of two water parks. Many don’t consider this to be a park but it’s clearly distinct and separate from the rest of the parks within the Disney World sphere. Attractions are pretty typical for water parks, albeit with Disney themes throughout, along with more technology.

• 61 acres
• .1 mile²
• .26 km²

Blizzard Beach

Disney’s effort with Blizzard Beach is an interesting one. Since Orlando, Florida isn’t exactly a haven for snow…ever—Disney went with a water park modeled after a snow resort. It’s an interesting concept and it seems to work, as it’s relatively popular, especially in the heart of the summer.

• 66 acres
• .1 miles²
• .26 km²

Of course, as you may have noticed, all of the six parks combined don’t total 30,000 acres of land. That’s because we’re including all of the land Disney owns and rests on in Orlando, including offices and buildings related to Disney in some way, form, or fashion.

The latest numbers only account for about 27,000 acres but Disney has since grown in size, making the 30,000-acre sum the more accurate figure.

Final Thoughts

Disney World, as a whole, including all of the various theme parks within, is quite large. The entire park hosts more than 17 million visitors per year, and not everyone is coming from Florida. However, Florida residents do get more and larger discounts than out-of-state residents.

Regardless of where you come from, it will take more than a week-long vacation to tour all it has to offer, especially when you include all of the hotels, restaurants, and everything the Orlando area has to offer. It’s one of the biggest tourism boons in the entire state.