Where's your town's nearest water-park??..

A waterpark is an amusement park that features waterplay areas, such as water slides, splash pads, spraygrounds (water playgrounds), lazy rivers, or other recreational bathing, swimming, and barefooting environments. Waterparks in more current states of development may also be equipped with some type of artificial surfing or bodyboarding environment such as a wave pool or a FlowRider.

Waterparks have grown in popularity since their introduction in the late 1940s. The United States has the largest and most concentrated waterpark market, with over a thousand waterparks and dozens of new parks opening each year. Major organizations are IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) and WWA (World Waterpark Association).

Waterparks emerging from spas continue to more closely resemble mountain resorts as they become four-season destinations, e.g. Splash Universe Water Park Resort, a member of the World Water Park Association, is themed to match the community in which they are a located to enhance the communities' destination appeal. Therefore the whole amusement and leisure time industry is getting even more concentrated as the winter sports is mixing up with the summertime water rides - in time and space. A process of concentration can be observed in the hybrid segments of theme-, amusement-, and waterparks. Some waterparks are more spa-oriented, e.g. Schwaben Quellen, a member of European Waterparks Association (EWA) has no water slides, but instead has lots of saunas, steam rooms, "adventure showers", and relaxation-oriented waterplay areas.

From 2000s, popular waterparks were disclosed by long wait line problems of attractions. To solve this problem, some waterparks adapt conveyor belt to lift passengers[1] or use water jets.[2]

The first ever indoor waterpark was built in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1985 at the West Edmonton Mall as part of the $1.2 billion dollar Phase III expansion. Called World Waterpark, it is over 217,800 sq ft (20,230 m2) in size.[3] It also includes one of the world's largest indoor wave pool, waterslides of varying degrees, tube rides, zip lines, bungee jumping, and hot tubs.

With 5 indoor waterparks, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, is recognized as the "Waterpark Capital of the World." It showcases several of America's largest indoor and outdoor waterparks (see Noah's Ark Waterpark). Indoor waterparks in Wisconsin Dells debuted in 1994 after the Polynesian Resort Hotel built the first one in the U.S. The success in extending the tourist season and turning waterpark resorts into vacation destinations has resulted in tremendous industry growth. Usually resort hotels featuring massive indoor waterparks that are often reserved exclusively for overnight guests, companies like Great Wolf Resorts/Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari Resorts have branched out from their origin in the Dells to open new locations around the country. Mt. Olympus Theme and Water Park (formerly Family Land) is another huge water park in The Dells.

The premier UK indoor waterpark is the Sandcastle Waterworld at Blackpool, England which has the Master Blaster, the world's longest indoor roller coaster-style ride.

There are many waterparks in Southern Europe where the climate suits a long season. For example in Portugal on the Algarve there are three main parks - Aqualand, Aquashow and Slide and Splash.

Courtesy:Wikipedia