Queen Elizabeth National Park

Queen Elizabeth National Park is a world biosphere reserve as gazetted by UNESCO in 1979 and it includes a RAMSAR wetland site that is classified as an important bird area by birdlife international.  The park lies on the bases of the rift valley amidst two lakes of George and Lake Edward and it extends westwards up to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The park is traced in the western part of Uganda and it spreads to 7 districts of Kasese, Rubirizi, Ibanda, Rukungiri, Kanungu, Kamwengye, and Mitoma. Visitors still can access Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park from Queen Elizabeth National Park and it will take only 2 to 3 hours to reach Bwindi.

The park occupies an area equivalent to 1978 square kilometers along with the de the equator together with and it approximately 376 kilometers by road to access the park from Uganda’s capital city Kampala. This park makes it easy to access Kibale Forest National park since the park is bordered by each other. The Kyambura gorges, Maramagambo Forest, Kazinga channel, and the lakes of George and Edward connected by Kazinga channel are all part of the Park.

Historically, the park began as a Lake George wildlife reserve in 1952, and in 1930 lake Edward game reserve was as well introduced and the two-game reserves were combined to form to Kazinga national park and this was later named Queen Elizabeth National Park in the year of 1954 after the visits of Queen of England Elizabeth 11 to the park.

The park was known as one of the savanna parks with several wildlife species though during the Tanzania conflicts, most of the wild species

were destroyed and others relocated. Later the wildlife diversity was restored and now the park features over 75mamal species and over 612 species of birds. This makes the park to be the longest birding lift of all protected areas in Africa if not in the whole World. The park features big 4 mammals of Africa which include buffaloes, Elephants, lions, leopards, hippopotamus, crocodiles among others.  Other animals include topi, Uganda Kobs, spotted hyenas, sitatunga, Serval cats, mongoose, forest pigs, and  Jackal. Ten species of primates that include chimpanzees,   L’-Hoests monkeys, blue and white monkeys are also present in queen Elizabeth National Park.

The park has varied vegetation types majorly savannah grassland forests, and swamps.  The lake Katwe exploration crater lakes for the park high altitude mark with up to 1,350 meters above seal lever while the lowest mark is traced areas around the Lake Edward standing at 910 meters above sea level. The presence of tree climbing lions in Ishasha sectors of the park has made Queen Elizabeth National Park the faultless destination for wildlife safari game drives.

Banyankole, Bakiga, and Bakonjo are the main tribes residing adjacent to Queen Elizabeth. Most of these tribes depend on substance farming while Banyankole is well known as cattle keeping. The park shelters Lake Katwe which is of economic significance to the people because of salt mining activities going on at the lake. Uganda Wildlife Authority manages the park. Visitors can combine safari packages to Mgahinga, Kibale, and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park since queen Elizabeth is close to these parks.