Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Attraction Introduction The massive Ngorongoro Crater is a gathering place for wildlife, home to a large number of large mammals. In the nearby Olduvai Gorge, fossils of early humans and traces of human life have been unearthed. The Tanzanian government has invested substantial manpower and resources to protect the wildlife here.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is located in the northern part of the United Republic of Tanzania. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979. The conservation area is a vast highland volcanic zone, bordering the Serengeti National Park to the west and Lake Manyara National Park to the east, covering an area of 80,944 square kilometers. This region was administratively separated from the Serengeti National Park in 1957 to become an independent nature reserve. The area features the world-famous Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and the Empakaai Crater, which has become a deep lake.

Every year between May and June, massive herds of zebras and wildebeests gather on the Serengeti Plateau, standing six or seven abreast, preparing to begin their 500-kilometer westward migration. This spectacular sight in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is rare in the world.

The Ngorongoro Crater is the world’s most intact volcanic caldera, standing at an altitude of 2,286 meters. Eight million years ago, Ngorongoro was an active volcano. The crater floor, technically known as a caldera — a large depression formed when a volcanic cone collapses into its magma chamber — spans an area of 160 square kilometers. Along the outer rim of the crater, six peaks over 3,000 meters in elevation rise dramatically into the sky.

The Ngorongoro Crater is home to a wide variety of animals, ranging from the tiny dik-dik antelope to rhinos, lions, and elephants, with astonishing numbers, making the crater world-renowned. When spring arrives, hundreds of thousands of flamingos gather at the crater’s salt lake in preparation for their annual migration, creating a stunning pink veil-like spectacle on the lake surface. The crater also boasts a rich diversity of flowers, including lilies, gladioli, petunias, daisies, lupines, and clovers, all blooming in vibrant colors, enhancing the crater’s breathtaking beauty. Maasai pastoralists have lived in the crater area for generations.

In the mid-1950s, the Olduvai Gorge, a shallow canyon, was discovered 40 kilometers west of the Ngorongoro Crater. The gorge was formed by ancient river erosion of rock layers. In 1959, anthropologists unearthed a 1.25-million-year-old skull of Australopithecus here. In 1960, they discovered fossil remains of Homo habilis dating back 1.9 million years, stone tools, and fossils of the ancestors of animals still hunted today. These findings are of great value to the study of the complex and controversial human family tree.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania