The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania. It covers an area of 14,763 km² (5,700 sq mi) and is located in the eastern Mara Region and northeastern Simiyu Region. The park includes over 15,000 km² (5,800 sq mi) of untouched grasslands. It was created in 1940.

The Serengeti is famous for the world's largest annual animal migration, which includes more than 1.5 million western white-bearded wildebeest, 250,000 Grant's zebra, 400,000 to 500,000 Thomson's gazelle, and smaller groups of common eland. The park is also home to the largest lion population in Africa. It faces challenges such as deforestation, increasing human populations, poaching, and the expansion of ranches.

Etymology

The name "Serengeti" is often connected to a Maasai word, "siringet," which means "the place where the land stretches forever" or "never-ending plains." However, this word is not found in dictionaries of the Maasai language.

History

In 1930, an area covering 2,286 km (883 sq mi) in southern and eastern Serengeti was set aside as a game reserve. During the 1930s, the government of Tanganyika created a system of national parks that followed the rules of the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State.

In 1930, Major Richard Hingdston, who was visiting Tanganyika on a mission from the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire (SPFE), suggested that the Serengeti Game Reserve be made a national park. This idea aimed to protect the area from the challenges of growing populations and economic development.

The area became a national park in 1940. In 1948, strict protection was introduced when the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees was formed to manage the park. The government limited the movement of the Maasai people who lived there, and the park’s boundaries were finalized in 1951. In 1959, a section of 8,300 km (3,200 sq mi) in the eastern part of the park was separated and re-established as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This area was created to allow the Maasai people to continue their traditional way of life in a place where different land uses were allowed.

In 1966, the Serengeti Research Institute was established at Seronera to study and track the Great Migration.

By 1981, the Serengeti National Park covered 12,950 km (5,000 sq mi), which was less than half of the entire Serengeti region.

The Serengeti became well-known after Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael made a book and documentary titled Serengeti Shall Not Die in 1959.

Wildlife

Serengeti National Park was created as a Lion Conservation Unit in 2005 together with Maasai Mara National Reserve. More than 3,000 lions live in this ecosystem. In 1994, an outbreak of canine distemper caused the deaths of about one-third of the lion population in the area.

The population density of the African leopard is estimated at about 5.41 individuals per 100 km (14.0 per 100 sq miles) during the dry season.

African bush elephant herds recovered after numbers dropped in the 1980s due to poaching and numbered over 5,000 individuals by 2014. The African buffalo population decreased between 1976 and 1996 because of poaching, but increased to 28,524 individuals by 2008. The Eastern black rhinoceros population was reduced to about 10 individuals in the 1980s due to poaching, and fewer than 70 individuals survive in the park today. Rhinos mainly eat grasses, shrubs, and plants like Indigofera, Acacia, and Crotalaria. An estimated 3,520 Masai giraffes lived in the park in 2010, down from 10,750 in 1977. The giraffe population stabilized in the center of the protected area since 2010, but continued to decline in edge areas.

Other mammal carnivores include the cheetah, about 3,500 spotted hyena, black-backed jackal, East African golden wolf, honey badger, striped hyena, caracal, serval, banded mongoose, and two species of otters. The African wild dog was returned to the area in 2012 after disappearing in 1991. Other mammals include hippopotamus, common warthog, aardvark, aardwolf, African wildcat, African civet, common genet, zorilla, African striped weasel, bat-eared fox, ground pangolin, crested porcupine, three species of hyraxes, and Cape hare. Primates such as yellow and olive baboons, vervet monkey, and mantled guereza are also seen in the gallery forests of the Grumeti River.

Reptiles include Nile crocodile, leopard tortoise, serrated hinged terrapin, rainbow agama, Nile monitor, Jackson's chameleon, African python, black mamba, black-necked spitting cobra, and puff adder.

More than 500 bird species can be seen, including Masai ostrich, secretarybird, kori bustards, helmeted guineafowls, grey-breasted spurfowl, blacksmith lapwing, African collared dove, red-billed buffalo weaver, southern ground hornbill, crowned cranes, sacred ibis, cattle egrets, black herons, knob-billed ducks, saddle-billed storks, white stork, goliath herons, marabou storks, yellow-billed stork, spotted thick-knees, lesser flamingo, shoebills, abdim's stork, hamerkops, hadada ibis, African fish eagles, pink-backed pelicans, Tanzanian red-billed hornbill, martial eagles, Egyptian geese, lovebirds, spur-winged geese, oxpeckers, and many species of vultures.

The great migration is the world's second longest overland migration. The complete migration route covers about 800 km (500 miles). South of this route is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where around half a million wildebeest are born between January and March. By March, at the start of the dry season, about 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebras begin migrating north toward Maasai Mara in Kenya. Common eland, plains zebra, and Thomson's gazelle join the wildebeest. In April and May, the herds pass through the Western Corridor. To reach Maasai Mara, the herds must cross the Grumeti and Mara Rivers, where about 3,000 crocodiles wait. For every wildebeest caught by crocodiles, 50 drown. When the dry season ends in late October, the herds begin returning south. About 250,000 wildebeest and 30,000 plains zebra die each year from drowning, predation, exhaustion, thirst, or disease.

Geology

The basement complex includes ancient greenstone rocks from the Nyanzian System, which are 2.81 to 2.63 billion years old, and granite-gneiss masses from the same era, which are 2.72 to 2.56 billion years old. These rocks were lifted 180 million years ago, forming koppies and long, narrow hills. The area also contains quartzite and granite from the Neoproterozoic Mozambique Belt, as well as sandstone, shale, and siltstone from the Neoproterozoic Ikorongo Group, which create long ridges. In the southeast part of the park, volcanic rock from the Neogene period and volcanic ash from the Holocene period, such as Oldoinyo Lengai, are found. The Grumeti, Mara, Mbalageti, and Orangi rivers flow west to Lake Victoria, while the Oldupai River flows east into the Olbalbal Swamps.

In the eastern part of the park, the Serengeti volcanic grasslands form a Tropical Grassland Ecosystem. These grasslands grow on layers of volcanic ash from the Kerimasi Volcano, which erupted 150,000 years ago, and from eruptions of Ol Doinyo Lengai, which created calcite-rich tuff and hard-pan soil called vertisols through the quick weathering of natrocarbonatite lava from the volcanoes.

Geography

The park covers 14,750 km² (5,700 sq mi) of grassland plains, savanna, river-side forests, and woodlands. It is located in northwestern Tanzania. To the north, it shares a border with Kenya and connects to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. To the southeast lies the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, to the southwest is the Maswa Game Reserve, to the west are the Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves, and to the northeast and east is the Loliondo Game Control Area.

The Serengeti Plain has a wide variety of landscapes, including savanna, hilly woodlands, and open grasslands. The area’s geographic diversity is influenced by very hot and windy weather. Scientists believe the region’s many habitats may have formed because of ancient volcanoes. These volcanoes created mountains, craters, and other land features over time.

The Mara River flows through the Maasai Mara National Reserve from the Kenyan highlands to Lake Victoria. It is the only river in the Serengeti ecosystem that flows year-round.

The park is divided into three main regions:

• Serengeti Plains: This area is best known for its nearly treeless grasslands in the south. It has rocky hills called koppies, which are used by predators for observation. The Volcanic Grasslands are a type of plant community that grows on soil made from volcanic ash near nearby volcanoes.
• Western Corridor: This region is marked by two rivers, Grumeti and Mbalageti, and includes river-side forests and small mountain ranges. The Great Migration passes through this area from May to July, heading toward Lake Victoria. The land here is flatter and more plant-covered than the southern plains.
• Northern Serengeti: This area is dominated by open woodlands, mostly made of Commiphora trees, and hills. It stretches from Seronera in the south to the Mara River on the Kenyan border. This region is remote and difficult to reach.

People are not allowed to live in the park, except for staff from the Tanzania National Parks Authority, researchers, and workers at lodges, campsites, and hotels. The main settlement is Seronera, which has a primary airstrip.

Administration and protection

The park is named by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a World Heritage Site. It is classified as a Category II protected area according to the system created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means it must be managed to protect the natural environment and its processes.

The group in charge of all parks in Tanzania is the Tanzania National Parks Authority. Myles Turner was one of the park's first game wardens and is recognized for helping stop the widespread poaching in the area.

Threats

Deforestation in the Mau Forest area has altered the water flow of the Mara River. Non-native plant species, including Siam weed, Prickly pear, Feverfew, and Mexican sunflower, have spread in the region. A study from 1996 found that the human population on the western side of the park increases by about 4% each year. Livestock farming has also expanded, leading to more land being used for agriculture and ranching. A 2001 study by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre reported that approximately 200,000 animals are killed annually due to poaching.

Between 2005 and 2012, the government planned to build a 452-kilometer highway through the park, a proposal that was reconsidered in 2024. This idea caused much debate. Supporters believed the road would improve transportation and reduce poverty in northern Tanzania, while conservationists warned it could harm the environment, disrupt the wildebeest migration, and threaten the ecosystem. Other options, such as building roads south of the park, have been suggested as ways to help more people without damaging the area’s natural resources.