UGANDA

Located in the southwest about 400 km from Kampala, Queen Elizabeth National Park is Uganda’s second-largest and most popular conservation area. Its 1,978 square kilometers were first gazetted in 1952 as Kazinga National Park, but its name was changed two years later in honor of a visit by the British monarch.

Famous as the location of Murchison Falls—the thunderous cataract where the Nile River squeezes through a six-meter gap and then plunges 43 meters—the park is also a magnet for birders and animal lovers. The 450 species of fowl recorded here include the rare shoebill stork and many endemics, while the 76 mammals include four of the Big Five (all but the rhinoceros, which live in special protected isolation at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary).

Although small—just 321 square kilometers—Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is of crucial importance as home to the world’s largest population of critically endangered mountain gorillas. The park contains about one-third of the 1,000 or so alive today, with the remainder in the Virunga conservation area shared by Rwanda and Congo. (For more about the gorillas and the experience of visiting one of Bwindi’s 10 habituated gorilla groups, see Tracking Gorillas: The Bigger Conservation Picture.

wo things stand out most about Kibale National Park—its world-famous endangered chimpanzees and the diversity of its habitats.

A medium-size park (795 square kilometers) contiguous with Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kibale is a rare expanse containing both lowland and montane forests, including the last large tract of pre-montane forest in eastern Africa. Altogether, more than 350 tree species have been registered in the park’s lush and variable woodlands.

Like Bwindi, Rwenzori Mountains National Park was gazetted in 1991 and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site three years later, in light of its mountain flora biodiversity (the greatest in Africa). Its 996 square kilometers in western Uganda are flush against the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and serve as a stunning backdrop to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

The semi-arid valleys and savanna of Uganda’s far north is the setting of Kidepo Valley National Park, the country’s most isolated national park and home to some of Africa’s most stunning wilderness.

The park’s 1,442 square kilometers are divided across two river valleys, the Kidepo and the Narus. In dry season, the water recedes to seasonal oases—wetlands and remnant pools—near Apoka, in the Narus Valley.

Covering just 370 square kilometers of wetlands and woodlands, Lake Mburo National Park is a short distance off the main highway about 235 kilometers west of Kampala.

Once a controlled hunting area and then a game reserve, it became Uganda’s smallest savanna national park in 1983. It is now the protected home of 350 bird species and 69 animal species, including zebras, buffalo, leopards, and hippos. It is also the only park in Uganda with impalas.

For a taste of Central Africa without leaving Uganda, there’s Semuliki National Park, the country’s newest park, which was confirmed in 1993. Semuliki sits in a wide, flat valley to the west of the Rwenzori Mountains, right along the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Geologically, this is the eastern edge of the Congo Basin’s vast and ancient Ituri Forest, which is notable for its biodiversity.

At a mere 33.7 square kilometers, Mgahinga is Uganda’s smallest national park, pushed up against the international border in the far southwest. While it may be limited in size, it is part of the much larger (and extremely important) Virunga conservation area, which spreads for thousands of square kilometers across protected areas in Uganda, the DRC, and Rwanda.

This high-elevation park was established primarily to protect freedom of movement by the area’s endangered, forest-dwelling Mountain Gorillas and Golden Monkeys. It is also part of the original territory of the indigenous Batwa people.