Nyungwe Forest National park is one of the biggest and famous National parks in Rwanda that has attracted visitors to the country generating a lot of income annually for the people of Rwanda and the government as well. Nyungwe Forest National park occupies an area equivalent to 970 square kilometers of land and it was at first gazetted as a forest reserve until 20014 when it was declared as a full National Park. Nyungwe Forest National Park is suited in the southwestern park of Rwanda close to Lake Kivu and near Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo borders. It is in the town of Cyangugu in the district of Rusizi district. Nyungwe Forest National Park is an exceptional tourism resource in Rwanda and its only montane forest that has remained since the Ice Age. Some scholars say that the forest could have been the source of the River Nile the official source of the Nile is in Uganda city of Jinja. With the presence of hilly, mountainous, and flat Topography that surrounds the park, it has rich plant biodiversity with over 1060 species of plants with tallest trees including Cyathea, Maniana, and Prith Prinaria exelsium inhabiting areas at raising at 1,900m. The forest of Nyungwe is also occupied by ferns and mosses that can be seen everywhere around the park. The park is known for chimpanzees. The park has two groups of chimpanzees well habituated in the forests with the largest chimpanzee groups having over 30 individual chimpanzees while the smaller habituated chimpanzee group is located in Cyamudongo Forest Reserve and it where it treks. The presence of chimpanzees in Nyungwe Forest National Park has made it the Leading Park for chimpanzee tracking safaris in Rwanda
Visitors also can walk on hanging bridges over the top of the trees in an activity called Canopy Walks.
The location of Nyungwe forest national park within the Albertine Rift with the surrounding mountains, vegetation, and tree species provide good groups for the habitation of different wildlife species. Nyungwe Forest National Park shelters over 85 species of mammals and 13 primates. The park is also a birders haven with over 300 species of birds of which 29 of them are endemic to the Albertine Rift Region and this has made it to be a prominent birding-watching safari for the visitors heading to Rwanda destination for a vacation.
Historically, Nyungwe Forest National park has stayed since 1903 when it was declared a reserve and a crowned land of Nyungwe by German colonialists. Besides, the park was reduced in size as the result of illegal human activities such as bush burning, deforestation, and poaching and this reduced the park to 150 square Kilometers. During this period that was in 1975 a lot of animals such as elephants and buffaloes were killed and in 1984 around 400 colobus monkeys lived in the forest. Research facilities were set up at Uwika but were later destroyed during the genocide in 1994 but after the situation normalized, the process of restoring the activities and services at Uwinka started and in 2014 the reserve was declared as a national park and now the park is listed as among the top tourism destination in Rwanda and has boosted the sales and income from tourism.