The Lisbon’s Oceanarium is one of the world’s largest aquariums and is widely recognised as the best and largest aquarium in Europe. The Oceanário was the centerpiece of the XXth Century’s last World Fair in 1998, themed “The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future”, and eternally binds Lisbon to the Oceans.

With over one million visitors per year, the oceanarium is a deep-sea diving experience without any of the risks, with about 25,000 fish, seabirds, and mammals in an enormous central tank that is the size of four Olympic-sized swimming pools.

But it’s the design rather than the size that makes the oceanarium outstanding, it is the first ever aquarium to include ocean habitats within a single environment, with impressive recreations of various ocean ecosystems including the Tropical Indian, the Temperate Pacific, Antarctic and North Atlantic.

Across these different habitats, you will find animals like red scorpionfish, Antarctic sea otters and penguins, striped catsharks and colorful, tropical birds. Visitors can look into it from different levels for close-ups of the various creatures, including different species of sharks.