Tarangire National Park

Tarangire National Park

Tarangire National Park has some of the highest population density of elephants as compared to anywhere in Tanzania, and its sparse vegetation, strewn with baobab and acacia trees, makes it a beautiful and distinctive location to visit.

Located just a few hours drive from the town of Arusha, Tarangire is a popular stop for people travelling through the northern safari circuit on their way to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. The park extends into two game controlled areas and the wildlife is allowed to move freely throughout.

Before the rains, droves of gazelles, wildebeests, zebras, and giraffes migrate to Tarangire National Park’s scrub plains where the last grazing land still remains. Tarangire offers an unparalleled game viewing, and during the dry season elephants abound. Families of the pachyderms play around the ancient trunks of baobab trees and strip acacia bark from the thorn trees for their afternoon meal. Breathtaking views of the Maasai Steppe and the mountains in the south make a stopover at Tarangire a memorable experience.

Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. It’s the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem - a smorgasbord for predators – and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed.

During the rainy season, the seasonal visitors scatter over a 20,000 sq km (12,500 sq miles) range until they exhaust the green plains and the river calls once more. But Tarangire’s mobs of elephant are easily encountered, wet or dry. The swamps, tinged green year round, are the focus for 550 bird varieties, the most breeding species in one habitat anywhere in the world.

Tarangire National Park Facts

The Tarangire National Park covers an area of 2850 km² and is the 6th largest national park in Tanzania. Tarangire is well known for the long-distance migration of wildebeest and zebras. A large volume of animals concentrates in Tarangire National Park from the surrounding wet-season dispersal and calving areas during the dry season which is particularly from July to November.
• The park was established in 1970 is the sixth-largest of its national parks in Tanzania.
• The national park is home to very diverse vegetation as well as the park contains a very large wildlife concentration, including the largest species of Africa's animals.
• The Tarangire River that flows through the park is one of the primary water sources for the migrating animals in the dry season.
• The most interesting and mysterious attraction of the national park is the tree-climbing lions which can only be spotted in Tarangire National Park.
• The lions are easy to spot in the national park as there are around 700 lions are residing in the national park.
• The national park is home numerous bird species which includes the Yellow-collared lovebirds, the Kori bustard the stocking-thighed ostrich, and hornbills.