The park has its origins in 1867 when Eggert Christoffer Knuth (1838-1874) built a sturdy 7.4 km (4.6 mi) wall around his property with stones fished out of the Smålandsfarvandet.

[2] He then hired English landscape architect Edward Milner who, on the basis of plans completed in 1870, laid out a park for his world collection of rare botanical plants as well as the many rhododendrons which are also a great attraction to tourists.

[11] In 1969, Count Adam W. Knuth added the first exotic animals to the park;[11] antelopes, plains zebras and ostriches were the first to be acquired from Kenya followed by white rhinos.

[2] Bactrian camels, antelopes, Rothschild's giraffes, white rhinoceroses, Chapman's zebras, blue wildebeest, moose, American bison and ostriches are some of the animals on view in the safari sections of Knuthenborg.

[16] The Museum of Evolution (Evolutionsmuseet), which opened in 2023, houses fossils of prehistoric animals, such as one of the largest (9 m [30 ft] long) and most complete (more than 95% preserved) Allosaurus skeletons named "Big Joe", a Torosaurus named "Adam" with the largest known dinosaur skull, the holotype specimen of Lokiceratops, dinosaur eggs, Dimetrodon and several other Permian animals, the giant ground sloth Eremotherium and one of only twelve known specimens of Archaeopteryx.

[24] Although some distances can be large (the full road system inside the park is 23 km [14 mi] long), much of the Safaripark is bicycle or walk-friendly, but the African savannah, and sections housing moose, American bison and Arctic wolf are accessible only by those in a closed motor vehicle (own car or a bus); however parts of the African savannah are also viewable from outside the enclosure.