Amboseli National Park

About Amboseli National Park

The 392 km2 (39,206 hectares) Amboseli National Park is a core part of the much larger Greater Amboseli ecosystem, which encompasses some 8,000 km2 and includes Amboseli, Chyulu Hills, Tsavo East and West, Mount Kilimanjaro national parks, and everything in between. Mount Kilimanjaro is just 50 km to the southeast in neighbouring Tanzania, and its looming form dominates the Amboseli skyline on clear mornings.

Besides contributing to the scenery, Mount Kilimanjaro constantly supplies water from its melting glaciers to the porous Amboseli soils to create freshwater springs. So, while Amboseli is relatively arid with low rainfall averages, some of the park is dominated by species-rich marshes, with Enkongo Narok, Ol Tukai, and Olokeya being the three largest.

Amboseli's most celebrated residents are the elephants - the subjects of the longest-running study of elephant behaviour in the wild via the Amboseli Elephant Research Project. The story of matriarch Echo, who led her family for over forty years before she died in 2008, captivated people worldwide and changed perceptions of elephants’ complex emotional lives. Deceased ‘super tusker’ Tim was popular amongst tourists, as is Craig, another gentle giant tusker still working his magic.

Visitors can also see lions, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, hippos, buffaloes, zebras, wildebeests, Maasai giraffes, and bizarre long-necked gerenuks.

Amboseli’s unique blend of semi-arid savanna and marshlands supports over 550 bird species, including the Malagasy pond heron, Pangani longclaw, steel-blue whydah, rufous chatterer, Hartlaub's bustard, and Eurasian thick-knee.