Ruaha National Park

Overview

Ruaha covers roughly 20,000 square kilometres of the southern highlands' rain shadow, and it is the largest national park in Tanzania and one of the largest in Africa. It sits on a transition zone where eastern and southern African species overlap, which is why you can see greater and lesser kudu, sable and roan antelope alongside the more familiar plains game - a combination available nowhere else. The Great Ruaha river is the spine of the park and the dry-season focus of everything that lives there. Ruaha's lion population is exceptional: prides of twenty or more are common and researchers estimate the wider ecosystem holds around a tenth of all remaining wild lions. It is also one of the strongest places in East Africa for African wild dog and for leopard. Baobab-covered hills, sand rivers and open miombo give it a very different feel from the northern parks, and the visitor numbers are a fraction of theirs.