Uganda Wildlife Parks

Uganda, Small but Precious

Uganda is not a large country, but it packs in an extraordinary range of scenery: Africa’s highest mountains, dramatic waterfalls, dense forests and deep green valleys. At the heart of it all are its national parks, which rank among the very best places in the world to trek for the rare mountain gorilla.

Parks of mountain, forest and river

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is where most gorilla treks happen. Its steep mountain rainforest shelters around half of the world’s mountain gorillas, along with elephants, duikers, African golden cats, giant forest hogs, chimpanzees and several kinds of monkey.

Queen Elizabeth National Park offers the widest variety of wildlife in the country, from lions, elephants and zebras to hippos and crocodiles, and it is famous for its tree climbing lions. More than 600 bird species have been recorded, and a detour to Kyambura Gorge brings you into a sunken forest full of chimpanzees and other primates.

Kibale National Park is a thick rainforest crowded with primates, including red colobus and L’Hoest’s monkeys, with forest elephants, hundreds of bird species and more than 250 kinds of butterfly. Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, rises to glaciers, lakes and waterfalls on some of Africa’s highest peaks.

In the far northeast, Kidepo Valley National Park is a remote and beautiful wilderness with animals seen nowhere else in Uganda, such as cheetahs, aardwolves, bat eared foxes and lesser kudu. And in Murchison Falls National Park, the country’s largest, the Nile is forced through a narrow gorge and plunges with astonishing power on its way to Lake Albert, surrounded by elephants, Rothschild’s giraffes, lions, buffalo, hippos and crocodiles.