AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK

Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve is in Kajiado District, Rift Valley Province in Kenya. The park is 390 km2 (150 mi2) in size at the core of an 8,000 km2 (3,000 mi2) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area (average 350 mm (14 in) one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world. The park protects two of the five main swamps, and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semi-arid vegetation.

Amboseli was set aside as the 'Southern Reserve' for Maasai in 1906 but returned to local control as a Game Reserve in 1948. Declared a National Park in 1974 in order to protect the core this unique ecosystem, it was declared a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Reserve in 1991.

The park is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants. Other attractions of the park include opportunities to meet Maasai and spectacular views of Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.