Nandankanan Zoological Park is a 437-hectare (1,080-acre) zoo and botanical garden located in Barang village, Odisha, India.

Nandankanan, literally meaning The Garden of Heaven,[1] is located in the environs of the Chandaka forest, and includes the 134-acre (54 ha) Kanjia lake.

[7] Forest officials decided in 1960 that including rare plants and animals in the Odisha pavilion at the World Agricultural Fair in Delhi would help increase attendance.

[8] The State Finance Department raised objections to a zoo in Odisha because of the cost of both establishing and maintaining the facility.

While the issue was being debated, animals arrived back at Bhubaneswar in May 1960, posing problems to the forest department for housing and feeding them.

The then Range Officer, Chandaka suggested Jujhagarh forest block on Kanjia lake near Barang Railway station as the most ideal location.

Jujhagarh Forest Block had all the advantages for locating the zoo except communication from Cuttack & Bhubaneswar and the only approach was via Gopalpur or Chandaka covering a distance of 38 km.

They were very much impressed with its aesthetic beauty and recommended location of the zoo there with construction of a straight road (a distance of 14 to 15 km) from Bhubaneswar.

A 15-kilometre (9.3 mi) road was built to the site, and Nandankanan Biological Park was officially inaugurated on 29 December 1960, by Sri S. K. Patil, then Indian Minister of Food and Agriculture.

[13] The zoo enjoys a good reputation internationally for successfully breeding black panthers, gharials, and white tigers in captivity.

Their parents were an orange father–daughter pair called Deepak and Ganga, who were not related to Mohan or any other captive white tiger.

There was a female white cub born at Mysore Zoo in 1984, from orange parents, descended from Deepak's sister.

On 29 August 1979, a white tigress named Seema was dispatched to Kanpur Zoo to be bred to Badal, a tiger who was a fourth generation descendant of Mohan and Begum.

White tigers which were a mixture of the Rewa and Odisha strains, born at the Nandankanan Zoo, were non-inbred.

A white tiger from out of the Odisha strain found its way to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Australia.

A large part of the credit for this first time ex-situ breeding in captivity goes to the meticulous planning and designing of the breeding enclosure at the Nandankanan Zoo by Dr. H. R. Bustard, which simulates the gharial's natural habitat of a deep flowing river with adequate high-rise sandbanks.

The breeding enclosure, together with a judicious mix of adult size classes to form a social group, minimal disturbance and provision of natural food culminated in that success story, which continues to the present date.

The Nandankanan Biological park has since provided many zoos around the world with captive-bred gharials for display and education.

[31] The State Bank of India donated ₹500,000 to adopt six endangered animals including a one-horned rhinoceros, white Bengal tiger, chimpanzee, and an orangutan.