Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide, Inc., also known informally as
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts or
Disney Parks, is one of
The Walt Disney Company's four major business segments and a subsidiary. Originally known as
Walt Disney Outdoor Recreation Division then
Walt Disney Attractions, it is responsible for the conception, building, and managing of the company's theme parks and vacation resorts, as well as a variety of additional family-oriented leisure enterprises. It was founded in 1971, after the opening of
Magic Kingdom at
Walt Disney World in
Florida, joining the original
Disneyland in
California, which opened in 1955. In 2014, the company's theme parks hosted approximately 134 million guests, making Disney Parks the world's most visited theme park company, ahead of the second-most visited rival
Merlin Entertainments. It is by far the largest Disney business segment by employee headcount, with about 130,000 of Disney's total number of 180,000 employees as of 2015.