Located in the northern part of its 6th arrondissement, it features the Jardin botanique de Lyon, as well as a lake on which boating takes place during the summer months.

In 1530, the lands constituting the current park were the property of the Lambert family; the location was already named "Parc de la Tête d'or".

Various locations were being considered, like the Presqu'île or the hill of Fourvière, and then finally, the grounds owned in large part by the Hospices civils de Lyon were chosen.

[2] In 1845, the architect Christophe Bonnet proposed, in the purpose of the beautification of the La Guillotière quarter, a project of urban park at the current location of the park: "To satisfy the pressing needs of a large population, I turned the lands and brush of the Parc de la Tête d'or into a planted wood like the Bois de Boulogne."

Work on the park began in 1856, under the leadership of Swiss landscape designers Eugene and Denis Bulher and lasted five years.

Formerly called Île des Cygnes, it has been converted after plans by the Lyon architect Tony Garnier and the 1904 Prix de Rome sculptor Jean-Baptiste Larrivé to honour soldiers killed in combat.

It extends over six hectares and counts several hundred animals, including many large mammals, some are very rare, like the Barbary lion, extinct in the wild since 1922.

At the east end of the plain a pavilion houses the boses for antelopes and some sandy enclosures adorned with rocks and stumps, where live yellow mongooses, porcupines, sand cats and bat-eared foxes and turtles.