What is the difference between Disneyland and Disney World?

Answer 1

Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. It was the first Disney theme park and was built in the 1950s and is limited in its ability to expand because it is now surrounded by a developed city.

Disney World is a cluster of theme parks in the region of Orlando, Florida. It was the second element to be built in the Disney theme park business. Original construction began in the 1970s and additions are still being developed.

The primary different, besides location, is that Disney World is much bigger, involves several different theme parks and includes many hotels and other amenities that are not provided by the Disney organization at Disneyland.

Answer 2

The Walt Disney park in Orlando is connected to other parks (Epcot, Universal Studios, and the Magic Kingdom) while the Walt Disney park in LA stands alone. The two parks have many of the same attractions, although some of the attractions in Florida are in the other parks in its group. Each park also has some of its own attractions that can not be found at the other.

Answer 3

(How old IS that answer?)

The Disneyland Resort (in Anaheim, California, near Los Angeles) has two parks: Disneyland (the one and only Original) and Disney California Adventure (which is better than you've probably heard, especially if the people you're hearing about it from visited it several years ago).

Walt Disney World (mostly in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando) has four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios) and a couple of water parks.

As you might have guessed, Disney World is significantly larger; the primary reason Disney built it was that he was becoming severely constrained by development surrounding the original Disneyland, and he wanted greater control over the entire guest experience including hotels (at the time, Disney itself didn't own any of the hotels around Disneyland; even the Disneyland Hotel was owned and operated by someone who had licensed the name, though Disney has since bought it). However, Disneyland is more 'concentrated'; the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland are not identical, but they are the most similar of any pair of Disney parks in the US, despite Disneyland having a significantly smaller footprint (85 acres vs. 107 acres). (When Star Wars land opens in both locations, the one in California will be part of Disneyland but the one in Florida will be part of Hollywood Studios.) California Adventure has duplicates of several rides from various parks in Disney World, but isn't especially like any particular one of them and vice versa.

There's a Universal Studios in the general vicinity of both locations; the one in Florida is bigger (and significantly closer to the Disney parks) but the one in California is "more authentic" in that that's where the working backlot where many movies have been filmed is ... however, a fire a few years back destroyed large swaths of the backlot, so a lot of what you see there now is no longer the original set that was used for many of your favorite movies either.