There are 15 Planet Zoo 2 maps you can use in Franchise and Sandbox mode, plus 6 wildlife reserves. Career mode has even more. The catch? You don’t pick a map from a list. You choose a biome, a continent, and flat or sculpted, and the game hands you one. But keep in mind, the grassland maps come with baobabs, even in North America. Here’s every Planet Zoo 2 map and exactly what to click to get it.
What You’ll Read:
How Planet Zoo 2 Maps Selection Works
Pick your biome and continent first. The selector shows which continents each biome covers, and the final option is flat or sculpted.
Flat maps are identical on every continent. You get the full 1 km x 1 km square, with a bus and entrance gates you can delete.
Sculpted maps have unique backdrops, pre-built plants, and sometimes whole buildings. The catch is that they don’t use the full 1 km² space, and some objects are locked in place outside the zoo boundary. Sculpted looks better, but flat gives you more freedom.
Note: The game doesn’t give these maps official names, so the names below are community nicknames.
Planet Zoo 2 Flat Maps
Below are all the flat maps in Planet Zoo 2 that you can build from scratch.
Temperate Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Temperate biome, any continent, Flat option
One of the most popular maps from the first game is back, and it’s greener this time. The hills in the background look a lot like the British countryside. Up close, the grass looks way better than it did in Planet Zoo 1.
You start with a bus and some entrance gates. Delete them if you want a blank slate. My only gripe is the backdrop. No map in the game has a hill-free horizon, which is a bummer if you want something like a Dutch zoo.
Tundra Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Tundra biome, any continent, Flat option
This is the Antarctic tundra, because there isn’t a single tree on it. It also means you can build an Arctic zoo above the tree line, like Spitsbergen.
A river runs down each side of the map, and the mountains in the background stay low-key. You get a big open middle to build in, and the snowfall looks great. It’s a simple map, but a good one.
Grassland Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Grassland biome, any continent, Flat option
This is a huge, classic African savannah with misty mountains in the background. There’s tons of room to work with. Honestly, it’s the kind of place you’d rather conserve than build on.
The big mountain is the catch. It’s such an obvious landmark that it becomes the focal point of every zoo built here, so they all start to look alike. The map is also the same on every continent, which means baobab trees in the background even if you’re building in North America.
Taiga Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Taiga biome in Asia, Europe, or North America, Flat option
Don’t let the name fool you. This map is anything but flat around the edges. Huge, detailed mountains surround the whole thing, with clouds drifting between the peaks and a little snow on the slopes. They look great, and they make sense for a taiga map.
The middle is a big, open area made for building. I think this will be a popular pick for colder zoos.
Tropical Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Tropical biome, any continent with tropical areas, Flat option
The mountains here are a lot subtler than in Planet Zoo 1, where they towered over the whole map. They’re still there to hide the fact that the map isn’t infinite, but they no longer feel like a wall. The land also looks more organic. It isn’t the perfect square with a ring of trees that flat maps used to be.
This was my first zoo. It’s an easy, forgiving place to start.
Desert Flat Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Desert biome, any continent that supports it, Flat option
This is the only desert map in the game, and there’s no sculpted version. It looks exactly how you’d expect: a sandy desert with big mountains in the background. The sand and rock textures are far sharper than they were in Planet Zoo 1.
Since it’s the same map everywhere, there’s no red desert for Oceania. That stings a little, but Oceanian animals are thin on the ground right now anyway. Hopefully Frontier adds one later, as it did in the first game. But until then, keep them in the shelter and feed them clean filtered water.
Planet Zoo 2 Sculpted Maps
Here are all the sculpted maps in Planet Zoo 2.
Temperate Sculpted Map (Europe)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Temperate biome in Europe, Sculpted option
A castle ruin is located on top of a hill, with a flat plain below it for your zoo and a river wrapped around the edge. Bridges cross the water. Guests walk in through a cave and head down to an open field.
This is one of the best maps for a realistic zoo. The castle is inside the zoo boundary, so you can delete it or rework it. A natural trail leads up to it, too. You just have to add the path yourself.
Temperate Sculpted Map (Asia)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Temperate biome in Asia, Sculpted option
Huge mountains rise around a plateau, with valleys in between. A lift carries guests up to the zoo. It’s one of the prettiest maps in the game, but not the most practical one.
You only get half the elevated platform. But while it looks tiny at first, it grows once you clear it. Either way, the rice fields, the boathouse, and the lift sit outside the boundary and are locked in place.
Temperate Sculpted Map (Americas and Oceania)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Temperate biome in North America, South America, or Oceania, Sculpted option
This is the stately home map: a big lake with a European-style village at one end. Guests walk out of the village and straight into your zoo. It looks gorgeous, but it feels very French for a map that covers three continents.
Everything around the village is locked. You can’t delete it, edit it, or even copy from it. The boundary also takes up the lake, so space is tight.
Tundra Sculpted Map (Europe)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Tundra biome in Europe, Sculpted option
This is the only sculpted tundra map, and it’s Europe-only. Tundra biomes on other continents don’t get a sculpted option at all.
It doesn’t look like tundra, though. Farmhouses are at the start, and the rolling hills are gentle enough to build on. It looks like a mix of taiga and temperate. Dirt roads run right into the build area, so you can make it look like guests actually drive in to a remote zoo. It’s also roomy, which is rare for a sculpted map.
Taiga Sculpted Map
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Taiga biome on any continent that has one, Sculpted option
There’s only one sculpted taiga map, and it’s the same on all three continents with the biome. A big lake sits under the mountains, with fog swirling around the peaks. This is one of my favorites, and it’s very similar, maybe identical, to a career map set in Norway.
A seaplane drops guests at a pre-built entrance building. You can remove the building. The boundary surrounds a bay and runs right up to the water, so you can’t build in it. The left side is narrow, too.
Tropical Sculpted Map (Africa, Americas, Oceania)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Tropical biome in Africa, North America, South America, or Oceania, Sculpted option
This is the city map you have been asking for. It isn’t a zoo inside a city, but a skyline backdrop works fine, since most modern zoos sit on the outskirts anyway. The land is nice and flat, so it’s a great pick for realistic builds.
The grassy field you see first isn’t the whole buildable area. It continues up the cliff and around the bottom. The highway runs past your zoo and connects to nothing, and a parked bus stands where a car park should be. The backdrop highways also clip through the terrain, which looks like an oversight. The selector shows different thumbnails per continent, but it’s the same map.
Tropical Sculpted Map (Asia)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Tropical biome in Asia, Sculpted option
This one is just utterly gorgeous. Turquoise water, a beach with driftwood, and a big hill rising into a valley with mountains behind it. Waves crash close to your build area, and the ocean stretches out forever. It has a Southeast Asian island feel.
The problem is space. You only get a small peninsula, and not all of that is buildable. The huts, the mountain, and the far side of the entrance cave are outside the boundary and locked.
Grassland Sculpted Map (Non-Africa)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Grassland biome in Europe, Asia, Oceania, or North America, Sculpted option
This is the “Pride Rock” map, with a rock outcrop standing in the field, a city skyline behind it, and roads leading to a pre-built car park. It’s gorgeous, but it’s called non-African and looks more African than the actual African map. Baobabs, an African-style entrance, and that same big mountain from the flat map are all here.
You can delete part of the entrance, but not all of it. Everyone who picks this map ends up with the same car park out front.
Grassland Sculpted Map (Africa)
Game modes: Franchise, Sandbox
How to get it: Grassland biome in Africa, Sculpted option
This is the most Planet Zoo-looking map in the sequel. A lake sits on a large plateau that overlooks a much drier landscape below. A river flows out of the lake and drops down the mountain in a string of waterfalls. It looks awesome.
The plateau gives you plenty of building space. The waterfalls and cliffsides are outside the boundary, so you can edit the lake but nothing past it. The bridge sits inside the border, and a pre-built path runs across it. You can delete both.
That’s it. Which one is your favorite Planet Zoo 2 map? Let me know in the comments below.
Planet Zoo 2
