Serengeti National Park

Serengeti National Park covers about 14,763 square kilometres of grassland, acacia woodland and riverine forest in northern Tanzania, across the eastern Mara Region and the northeastern Simiyu Region. Parts of the area were protected from 1940, the national park was formally established in 1951, and it is managed by Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA). To the north it continues across the Kenyan border as the Maasai Mara National Reserve, and to the southeast it adjoins the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The name is usually traced to the Maasai word siringet, meaning the place where the land runs on forever, a fair description of the short-grass plains in the south of the park. UNESCO inscribed the park on the World Heritage List in 1981 for its great herds and the intact ecosystem that supports them.

The park is best known for the Great Migration, the year-round circular movement of well over a million wildebeest together with hundreds of thousands of zebra and gazelle. The herds calve on the southern plains early in the year, move west and north as the grass dries, and cross the Grumeti and Mara rivers, where crocodiles wait at the crossing points. Predators follow the herds, and the Serengeti holds one of the largest lion populations in Africa, along with leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas and hundreds of bird species.

The central Seronera area has year-round water and resident wildlife, which makes it the busiest part of the park. Granite outcrops called kopjes rise from the plains and give shelter to lions and other animals. The western corridor follows the Grumeti River, while the remote north around Kogatende sees the Mara River crossings in the second half of the year.

Entry fees are paid per person per 24 hours to TANAPA, and visitors also pay for vehicles and accommodation inside the park. Most people arrive on a guided safari from Arusha by road through the Ngorongoro highlands, or by light aircraft to one of several airstrips. Plan at least three days to see more than one region.

How many animals take part in the migration?

About 1.5 million wildebeest and around 250,000 Grant's zebra make up the core of the Great Migration, and the journey is hard on them; around 30,000 zebras are estimated to die each year along the route. More than 3,000 lions live across the Serengeti and Maasai Mara ecosystem, though a canine distemper outbreak in 1994 killed about a third of them. Eastern black rhinos fell to around 10 in the 1980s and number fewer than 70 today.

The park became famous abroad through Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael, whose book and film Serengeti Shall Not Die appeared in 1959. In the same year about 8,300 square kilometres in the east were split off as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to allow for Maasai land use. The Serengeti Research Institute was set up at Seronera in 1966 to study the herds, and Seronera has the park's main airstrip.

The Serengeti receives around 350,000 visitors a year by the park's own figure, with 300,727 counted in 2023. A 452 kilometre road across the park was debated from 2005 to 2012 and revived in 2024, and conservationists warn it would cut through the migration route.