National Geographic is owned by Disney (the United States, NYSE: DIS), which acquired the brand on 20 March 2019, as part of a $71.3 billion deal that also included 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.[1][2] National Geographic was founded in 1888 in Washington, D.C. and was independent until 2019.
Evidence: The Walt Disney Company Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2025-11-13, SEC EDGAR, 13 November 2025. Verified from filings; last checked .
National Geographic has published since 1888 and is owned jointly with the non-profit National Geographic Society, with Disney holding the controlling share through the Fox acquisition. Its yellow rectangle border is among the most recognised magazine devices in the world.
Sentences about National Geographic from Disney's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
National Geographic Channels air programming in genres such as travel, adventure, wildlife, documentary, science and history. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS The number of subscribers (in millions) for the significant domestic branded channels are as follows: Subscribers (1) Disney Channel 61 Freeform 51 FX 62 National Geographic 61 (1) Based on Nielsen Media Research estimates as of September 2025.
General Entertainment General Entertainment channels include FX and National Geographic, which air a variety of scripted, reality and documentary programming.
Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic branded programming are all top-level selections or "tiles" within the Disney+ interface.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
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See the full Disney brand portfolio (13) →
Disney controls 13 brands on Brandtree, 10 of them in media & entertainment.
The 70 brands in newspapers & magazines on Brandtree belong to 16 owners. The largest is Reach, with 9.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| BelfastLive | Reach | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| Beobachter | Ringier | 🇨🇭 Switzerland |
| Aftenposten | Schibsted Media | 🇳🇴 Norway |
| Condé Nast | Advance | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Country Life | Future | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| Car and Driver | Hearst | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Brisbane Times | Nine | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| ARQ | Grupo Clarín | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
Disney is a publicly listed company headquartered in Burbank, California, United States, founded in 1923. Brandtree records 13 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: DIS.
Disney was founded in 1923 by two brothers making short cartoons and is now the largest entertainment company in the world. Its purchases of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and most of 21st Century Fox mean a substantial share of the highest-grossing films ever made belong to one owner.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; National Geographic is not one of them.
Disney acquired most of Twenty-First Century Fox for about $71.3 billion in cash and stock, after outbidding Comcast. The film and television studios, National Geographic and the Star and Hulu stakes transferred; the Fox news, sports and broadcast assets were spun into the separate Fox Corporation.
The parent company of National Geographic is Disney, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. National Geographic originated in the United States in 1888 and its owner, Disney, is also headquartered in the United States.
Disney completed its acquisition of National Geographic on 20 March 2019, after announcing the deal on 14 December 2017. The deal, which also included 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures, was valued at $71.3 billion (enterprise value).
National Geographic was an independent company from its founding in 1888 in Washington, D.C. until Disney acquired it in 2019.
Yes. As of 9 October 2026, National Geographic is still owned by Disney. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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