how big is the georgia aquarium
The Georgia Aquarium is enormous: it holds more than 11 million gallons of water in total and covers about 550,000–600,000 square feet of indoor space (roughly 13 acres).
Quick Scoop
- Total water volume: more than 11 million gallons of fresh and saltwater across all exhibits.
- Building size: originally about 550,000 square feet of covered space; some sources now round this up to around 600,000 square feet as the facility has expanded.
- Site footprint: about 13 acres in downtown Atlanta.
- Status: the largest aquarium in the United States and one of the largest in the world by water volume.
The single biggest tank, Ocean Voyager (the one with the whale sharks), holds about 6.3 million gallons of water on its own and is roughly the size of a football field in length. It measures on the order of a few hundred feet long and over a hundred feet wide, with a depth generally in the 20–30 foot range, making it the largest indoor aquatic habitat in the world.
Overall, when people ask “how big is the Georgia Aquarium,” they’re usually reacting to that combination: an entire complex covering multiple city blocks and tanks so large they can comfortably house whale sharks and manta rays.
| Aspect | Size / Value |
|---|---|
| Total water volume | More than 11 million gallons across all exhibits | [1][3]
| Indoor space | About 550,000–600,000 square feet of covered area | [3][8][1]
| Site area | Roughly 13 acres in downtown Atlanta | [2][1][3]
| Largest tank (Ocean Voyager) | Approx. 6.3 million gallons, football-field scale | [5][1][3]
| Global ranking | Largest in the U.S., among the largest worldwide by volume | [8][2][3]
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.
