Despite its size, it houses over 300 animals in a number of exhibits, including one of the first indoor tropical rain forests in the United States.

The Gage Family donated 80 acres (32 ha) to the city of Topeka in 1899 to use for a public park.

Over the years, the park has accumulated playgrounds, a swimming pool, a fishing lake, a mini train, a rose garden, and a carousel.

Additional exhibits were constructed over the years, and in 1963 the city hired its first zoo director, Gary K. Clarke.

[citation needed] Kansas Carnivores, opened in 2009, features cougars and river otters in side-by-side exhibits.

Units house Virginia opossum, eastern screech owl, and red-tailed hawk.

Individual exhibits house golden lion tamarins, three-banded armadillos, Cuvier's dwarf caimans, yellow-spotted river turtle, red-footed tortoises, and greater mouse-deer.

This building also serves as the indoor house for the zoo's hippopotamus, African and Asian elephants, and reticulated giraffes.

In the Lianas Forest (formerly Discovering Apes) building, Bornean orangutans live behind glass in an enclosure replicating the treetops in Borneo.

A playground includes many climbing structures, a place to ride tricycles, and a mining sluice.

An exhibit recreating a traditional Japanese garden with a koi pond, honoring Kansas Chief Justice Kay McFarland, opened in 2020.

[6] One orangutan died in 2003 of tularemia, an infectious disease carried by rabbits and some rodents but sometimes found in humans and primates.