It is operated by the Rich-Lex Riverbanks Park Special Purpose District, a partnership of the city of Columbia and Richland and Lexington counties.

However, the idea did not get beyond the planning stages until 1969, when the state created the Rich-Lex Riverbanks Park Special Purpose District to run the proposed zoo.

[4] Notable features of the original Zoo design were the mountainous, moated exhibits for big cats and bears.

The Birdhouse at Riverbanks (opened 2001) was given a Significant Achievement Award by the AZA as one of the best new zoo exhibits in the United States, and features a display of king, rockhopper, and gentoo penguins.

African Plains is a 2-acre (0.81 ha) pair of exhibits featuring giraffe (including a paid feeding station), as well as Grant's zebra, and ostrich in the other.

Conservation Outpost features threatened species such as golden lion tamarins, fishing cats, and the aforementioned lemurs.

The Riverbanks Zoo added a Malayan tapir on January 18, 2013, since deceased; as well as a breeding pair of North Sulawesi babirusas in 2012.

Additionally, a children's garden opened in 2016, complete with a dinosaur digging area and water features to interact with.

[12] Riverbanks also has a 70-acre (28 ha) botanical garden (opened on June 10, 1995 at the cost of $6 million) with more than 4,200 species of native and exotic plants, and some sculptures.

A trail system lets visitors explore several kilometers of bottomland and upland mixed hardwood forests in search of the native wildlife that call the Zoo and Garden home.