--- title: Walt Disney World Opening Day Map Versus Modern Map description: The theme park opened on Oct. 1, 1971 canonical: https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-01T19:00:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:30:06.876Z article:section: History og:title: Disney World, then and now og:description: The theme park opened on Oct. 1, 1971 og:url: https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd6fe3163ea1f8467/6986a63a1eebf774ca372f1d/disney.png?branch=production&width=890&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 890 og:image:height: 501 og:image:alt: Disney Map og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Disney World, then and now twitter:description: The theme park opened on Oct. 1, 1971 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd6fe3163ea1f8467/6986a63a1eebf774ca372f1d/disney.png?branch=production&width=890&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Map Shows That Disney World Has Grown Like Crazy > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 1, 2014 7:00 PM UTC  From the Oct. 18, 1971, issue of TIME From the Oct. 18, 1971, issue of TIME TIME  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 1, 2014 7:00 PM UTC A few decades ago, it was incredible to imagine a theme park surpassing the size and scope of California’s Disneyland — but Walt Disney World, which opened on this day, Oct. 1, in 1971, did. “‘World’ is right,” TIME marveled in the Oct. 18 issue of that year, alongside a map of the new attraction. “The latest Disney enterprise, four years in the building, includes a spotlessly clean amusement area, two enormous and elaborate hotels with marinas and beaches, two championship-caliber golf courses, lavishly landscaped lakes and a futuristic transportation network linking everything.” The article went on to praise the “futuristic unisex jumpsuits” worn by workers, the $4.25 roast beef dinner at Cinderella Castle and the skill of the lawyers who worked to make Disney World “in effect a city-state” with near complete control of what goes on on its property. So we can only imagine how much ooh-ing and aw-ing there would have been if those writers in 1971 had gotten a load of this modern map of Disney World: [](https://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/walt-disney-world-map.jpg)Disney _Roll over to zoom; on mobile, click._ Everything included in the original map fits into the upper right-hand corner. Though the basic layout of the Magic Kingdom is unchanged, the resort — that’s Epcot, Animal Kingdom and rest of the whole shebang — now covers an area about the same size as San Francisco, by [Today.com](http://www.today.com/parents/10-crazy-things-you-never-knew-about-walt-disney-world-1B8240195)‘s count. But the craziest thing of all on that up-to-date map isn’t a new addition to the park; it’s that there’s still so much empty space into which it could still expand. **_Read the 1971 article about the theme park’s opening, here in TIME’s archives:_** [Pixie Dust Over Florida](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910109,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/"},"headline":"This Map Shows That Disney World Has Grown Like Crazy","datePublished":"2014-10-01T19:00:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:30:06.876Z","description":"The theme park opened on Oct. 1, 1971","url":"https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/","keywords":["Pop Culture","Maps","Theme Parks","Disney","Walt Disney"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd6fe3163ea1f8467/6986a63a1eebf774ca372f1d/disney.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd6fe3163ea1f8467/6986a63a1eebf774ca372f1d/disney.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Disney Map","caption":"Disney Map","creditText":"TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/pop-culture/","name":"Pop Culture"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3450340/disney-world-1971/","name":"This Map Shows That Disney World Has Grown Like Crazy"}}]}] ```