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Recreation.—The public park system embraces 735 acres. There are 10 large parks and 19 small ones, four community houses with playgrounds, a large outdoor swimming pool, and a zoo. The park system maintains three golf courses, 15 playgrounds, the majority of them lighted for night baseball. Fishing- and sailing are popular.

Indoor centers vary from a large club house, with its fifteen or twenty major activities, to the small room in a church or school, large enough for only a game of Table tennis or for small group meetings. The National Recreation Association, in its biennial report for 1948 giving the number of various facilities and the records of attendance for 1,673 cities, towns, counties and school districts, showed an attendance of about 162,000,000 at 1,282 bathing beaches or swimming pools (indoor and outdoor). Several other sports or facilities showed attendances in the tens of millions.

The cultural life of the city is also enriched by such organizations as the Richmond Academy of Arts and the Richmond Theatre Guild. Series of plays, concerts, operas, and lectures are given annually ; and one of the facilities Richmond provides for its large indoor gatherings is The Mosque, its civic center, with an auditorium having a seating capacity of nearly 5.000. Recreational Facilities. — In addition to 43 municipal playgrounds, the city has 18 parks covering a total area of more than 900 acres with walks, gardens, sculptural ornamentation, and facilities for ball games, tennis, swimming, golf, and other outdoor activities.