The Jardin takes up 49 acres of the Bois de Boulogne (the remains of an ancient forest) in the North-West of the city. It began life as a zoo, opened in 1860 by Napoleon III, and became an ethnological zoo for a while until 1912 (basically a human zoo, exhibiting African bushmen and the like..)

The quote below from a blog by Canadian academic Darin Kinsey discusses the original aims of the park, andit certainly explains the name;

....a new scientific community was formed in France, La Société imperiale zoologique d'acclimitation. The Société's mission was to promote and study the importation, acclimatization, and domestication of exotic animal and plant species that eventually could become acclimated to France and transformed into popular food sources. The Société's founding members included Isadore Geoffery Saint-Hilaire, Milne-Edwards, Quatrefages, and a large group of prominent naturalists and aristocratic supporters. Saint-Hilaire believed acclimatization to be the first step in a three-stage process that would lead ultimately to the complete submission of species to human domestication. At Boulogne, just outside of Paris, they constructed the centerpiece of their movement, the Jardin d'Acclimitation, which served as a laboratory for collective investigation. The Jardin, with its imperial sanction, represented nothing less than an ecological extension of the mission civilisatrice...

Nowadays there's an enchanted river, boat rides, fairground rides, a guignol theatre with traditional marrionettes, golf practice, a zoo, wading ppol and a farm amongst other attractions - you name it, this place has it and it's just as pleasant for grown-ups as it is for kids. (I should know - kiddy-centred attractions don't normally appeal at all!)

For those who are in need of a bit less walking, there's a "petit train" that runs from the Porte Maillot entrance to the Bois de Boulogne, directly to the Jardin.

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