The greatest wildlife destination on earth

The magic of Serengeti National Park is not easy to describe in words. Not only seeing, but also hearing the buzz of millions of wildebeest so thick in the air that it vibrates through your entire body is something you will try to describe to friends and family, before realising it’s impossible. Vistas of honey-lit plains at sunset so beautiful, it’s worth the trip just to witness this. The genuine smiles of the Maasai people, giving you an immediate warming glow inside. Or just the feeling of constantly being amongst thousands of animals – it doesn’t matter what season of the migration you visit the Serengeti National Park, it’s magical all year round.

The never-ending circle of the Great Migration

Serengeti National Park was one of the first sites listed as a World Heritage Site when United Nations delegates met in Stockholm in 1981. Already by the late 1950s, this area had been recognised as a unique ecosystem, providing us with many insights into how the natural world functions and showing us how dynamic ecosystems really are.

Today, most visitors come here with one aim alone: to witness millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles and elands on a mass trek to quench their thirst for water and eat fresh grass. During this great cyclical movement, these ungulates move around the ecosystem in a seasonal pattern, defined by rainfall and grass nutrients. These large herds of animals on the move can’t be witnessed anywhere else. Whereas other famous wildlife parks are fenced, the Serengeti is protected, but unfenced. Giving animals enough space to make their return journey, one that they’ve been doing for millions of years. Read more about the Great Migration.

Beyond the Great Migration

Even though, for many travellers, the migration is one of the main reasons to visit Serengeti National Park, it’s worth looking beyond this immense spectacle. First of all, nature can’t be directed. Having realistic expectations of your chances to witness a river crossing, or a large herd on the move, is crucial. A river crossing for example often only lasts thirty minutes, so can be missed in the blink of an eye. But don’t let this discourage you: there are plenty of other reasons to visit the Serengeti. If it’s not for this vast stretch of land where you can drive forever and never get enough, it might be for the incredible skies of dazzling colours, or the primal feeling of excitement when a deep dark-grey thunderstorm appears on the broad horizon. Or you might answer the lion’s call, and come to the Serengeti for one of the largest concentrations of predators in the world: the herds support about 7,500 hyenas, 3,000 lions and 250 cheetahs. And how about the silent grey giants? Elephants in the Serengeti amble over the plains into the woodlands, feasting on leaves and tree branches. Read more about wildlife in Serengeti wildlife.

Tribes in the cradle of human life

Even though animals still rule the plains of the Serengeti, this area has an incredibly long history of human occupation. Not only humans, but also human ancestors (Australopithecus afarensi) lived in this area for almost 4 million years. Today, Serengeti National Park is still home to several indigenous tribes. One of the most famous tribes is the Maasai: this tribe is unique and popular due to their long-preserved culture. Despite education, civilization and western cultural influences, the Maasai people have clung to their traditional way of life, making them a symbol of Tanzanian and Kenyan culture. Read more about the Maasai people.

Vibrancy, variety and vastness

You will soon realise that amazement doesn’t have boundaries in this world-renowned National Park of Tanzania. Serengeti is a transition area, with distinct changeovers going from rich flat soils, to poor hilly soils in the north, attracting a wide variety of vegetation and animals. Whether you are looking for big cats, birds or even smaller creatures: Serengeti National Park delivers. Even to understand and experience just a small part of this ecosystem, will change your vision on our world and the environment.

After being overwhelmed by the vibrancy, variety and vastness of this land, this place of transition will leave you changed forever.

History of Serengeti National Park

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, explorers and missionaries described the Serengeti plains and the massive numbers of animals found there. Only minor details are all that were reported before explorations in the late 1920s and early 1930s supply the first references to the great wildebeest migrations, and the first photographs of the region.

An area of 2,286 square kilometers was established in 1930 as a game reserve in what is now southern and eastern Serengeti. They allowed sport hunting activities until 1937, after which it stopped all hunting activities. In 1940 Protected Area Status was conferred to the area and the National Park itself was established in 1951, then covering southern Serengeti and the Ngorongoro highlands. They based the park headquarters on the rim of Ngorongoro crater.

So, the original Serengeti National Park, as it was gazetted in 1951, also included what now is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). In 1959, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was split off from the Serengeti National Park and they extended the boundaries of the park to the Kenya border. The key reason for splitting off the Ngorongoro area was that local Maasai residents realized that they were threatened with eviction and consequently not allow to graze their cattle within the national park boundaries. To counter this from happening, protests were staged. A compromise was reached wherein the Ngorongoro Crater Area was split off from the national park: the Maasai may live and graze their cattle in the Ngorongoro Crater area but not within Serengeti National Park boundaries.

In 1961 the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya was established and in 1965 the Lamai Wedge between the Mara River and Kenya border was added to Serengeti National Park, thus creating a permanent corridor allowing the wildebeests to migrate from the Serengeti plains in the south to the Loita Plains in the north. The Maswa Game Reserve was established in 1962 and a small area north of The Grumeti River in the western corridor was added in 1967.

The Serengeti National Park was among the first places to be proposed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO at 1972 Stockholm conference. It was formally established in 1981.

Geology of Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti ecosystem is part of East Africa’s high interior plateau. It slopes from its highest parts in the crater highlands (at an altitude 3,636 meters) towards Speke Gulf on Lake Victoria (920 meters above sea level).

The highlands result from volcanic activity related to plate tectonics of the Rift valley. The area still has one active volcano: Ol Doinyo Lengai, which means ‘mountain of God’ in the local Maa language. Learn all about Serengeti's geology on this page.

Rivers in the Serengeti

The Serengeti plains are at an elevation between 1,600 and 1,800 meter above sea level. Several river catchments drain the area. The Mara River in the north flows from the Mau forests in the Kenyan highlands, southwards through the Masai Mara National Reserve, then west through northern Serengeti, out through the great Masarua marshes, and ultimately into Lake Victoria at Musoma. This is the only permanently flowing river in the Serengeti ecosystem. It supports dense riverine forests on its banks in the Mara, and along its major tributaries in Serengeti National Park. South of the Mara are the parallel catchments of the Grumeti and Mbalaget Rivers that form the Western Corridor of Serengeti National Park. Further south there are the much smaller Duma, Simiyu and Semu rivers flowing through Maswa Game Reserve. The area is undulating and dissected by many small seasonal streams that drain into the main rivers.

Hills & mountains

There are bands of hills that rise steeply from this relatively flat landscape. One band forms the north-eastern boundary of Serengeti National Park in the woodlands, running north from Grumechen to Kuko, then joining the Loita Hills in Kenya. The Gol Mountains rise from the Serengeti plains east of the park. Another band stretches from Seronera west along the corridor to form the Central Ranges, and a third group of hills lies in the south forming the Nyaraboro-Itonjo plateau.

Soils & volcanic history

West of the line Mugumu - Seronera the underlying rocks are ancient (600 million to 2.5 billion years) and comprises Precambrian volcanic rocks, banded ironstones and mineral-poor granites. Late Precambrian sedimentary rocks cover this shield and form the central and southern hills. East of Seronera, granite and quartzite form the eastern hills and kopjes. The western corridor is of more recent geological history; it is a complex of unconsolidated sediments and alluvial formations, which form the base for more nutrient-rich soils. The Crater Highlands are volcanoes of the Pleistocene age and comprise basic igneous rocks and basalt. One volcano, Ol Doinyo Lengai, is still active with the last eruption dating back to 2013.

Africa is an old continent. Evidence suggests it is as old as 4 billion years, older than Europe or North America. We can see this old age from the air (so have a good peek when arriving into Kilimanjaro Airport). Millions of years of weathering have flattened mountains and turned much of Africa into a series of endless, rolling plains and hills. One exception is the geologically active East African Rift system.

The East African Rift is the area where two tectonic plates are moving away from one another. The resulting cracks have produced both the immense Rift Valley and the volcanoes on either side of it. Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and Mount Meru are a few of the best-known examples of the Rift's volcanoes. Although Ngorongoro Crater looks like an extinct volcano, geological surveys suggest it never exploded, however most of its immediate neighbours did. Ngorongoro Crater is a caldera, which means the mountain is collapsing on itself as the tectonic plates separate.

The volcanoes of the East African Rift are relatively young. As these volcanoes erupted, they covered the eastern parts of Serengeti with ash and larger particles. This volcanic ash on the plains creates a very specific type of soil rich in minerals. Eastern plains soils contain different salts, such as sodium, potassium, , and calcium. The soil here is shallow because of the formation of a calcareous hardpan, also known as caliche. During the regional rains, salts are washed down into the soil. As water is removed by plant uptake, the soluble substances precipitate and the caliche layer develops and cements through lime. Soils in the Serengeti become deeper (where the hardpan disappears) towards the northwest plains and into the woodlands, because of more rainfall and less calcium. At levels of precipitation too high for hardpan formation, a characteristic soil catena is found. This is the gradient of soil types from ridge top to drainage pump, characterized by a sandy, shallow, well-drained soil at the top transforming to poorly drained and deep silty soil at the bottom. These catenas form because of the long-term downwash of the finer soil particles downslope with surface run-off.

Kopjes

Below the layers of volcanic rock and ash, that form the soil of Serengeti National Park, is a thick layer of extremely old rock. A giant bubble of liquid granite forced its way up from the molten rock below the Earth’s crust and into the Tanganyika Shield in the late Precambrian period. Today, as the softer rocks wear off, it exposes the jagged top of this granite layer, forming kopjes (pronounced ‘kop-eez'). The granite is cracked by the repeated heating and cooling under the African sun and weathered into interesting shapes by the wind. Most kopjes are round or have round boulders on them.

Kopjes are a distinctive feature of the Serengeti landscape and are often referred to as ‘islands in a sea of grass’. They provide protection from bushfires, hold more water in the direct vicinity, offer a hiding place for animals, and a vantage point for predators. Hundreds of plant species grow on kopjes, but not in the surrounding grasslands. Many animal species live on kopjes only because of the presence of these plants, and for reasons of protection. These animals include insects, lizards, and snakes, but also mammals such as shrews and mice, up to large specialist mammals, such as lions. Kopjes are one of the best places to see lions, and occasionally cheetah or leopard.

Plant life Serengeti

The Serengeti comprises various habitats: large tracts of plains, woodlands and riverine forests.

These habitats support many species of trees and grasses. We have outlined the most notable of these, so keep your notebook ready and see whether you can recognize these during your Serengeti safari.

Trees

Sausage Tree (Kigelia africana)

This large tree is only found sparsely in the Serengeti, usually along the dry river banks. It produces remarkable long (up to 50 centimeters), succulent, but poisonous fruits that drop from the tree and release seeds as the pulp rots: The fruit stalks can be seen for months after the fruit has dropped and is often mistaken for a leopard's tail.

Fig Trees (Ficus sp.)

There are several species of fig trees in Serengeti National Park. The distinctive grey smooth bark with large buttressing intertwined roots and saucer-sized dark green leaves make them easy to identify. Figs are a common tree along the moist banks of rivers or growing in the rocky clefts of kopjes.

Wild Date Palm (Phoenix reclinata)

Palms are monocotyledons meaning that the veins in their leaves unbranched and parallel, and are thus relatives of lilies, bananas, grasses, and orchids. The wild date palm is the most common of palm trees in the Serengeti, and can be found along rivers and in swamps. Although fruits of the wild date palm are edible, they taste horrible. The sugary sap can be made into palm wine. The tree offers lots of shade favoured by resting lions.

Commiphora (Commiphora africana)

We can easily distinguish Commiphoras from Vachellia by their peeling, papery blue/yellowish bark and small roundish leaves. These trees occur throughout the Serengeti, but are dominant in the eastern section of the park. Local medicine makes use of the roots, bark and berries for a multitude of treatments, including rashes, liver problems, and stomach complaints. Of the Commiphora species, Commiphora africana (or African myrrh) is the most common.

Yellow Fever Tree (Vachellia xanthophloea)

The yellow fever tree is a common sight in wet areas along rivers, or near swamps and floodplains. A tall graceful tree with large white thorns, wide stretching branches and yellow bark makes it distinctive. You really can’t miss it. Early settlers noticed that malaria was more common near standing water, but blamed their fevers on the yellow trees growing in the vicinity rather than mosquitoes; hence the name ‘Yellow Fever Tree’.

Umbrella Tree (Vachellia tortilis)

This tree represents Africa, its iconic shape breaking the flat landscape of the plains. Vachellia tortilis arches dramatically over the savannah throughout Serengeti National Park with prominent white thorns, dark bark and its distinguishable flat-top. The seedlings of this tree are favoured by giraffes and elephants. Seedlings of the umbrella tree cannot survive bush fires, so only twice in the last 125 years have umbrella trees been able to establish en masse. Most of the umbrella trees in Serengeti are 125 or 45 years old.

Whistling Thorn (Vachellia drepanolobium)

An odd-looking tree that has hard, hollow spheres at the base of its thorns, filled with biting ants. The tree encourages ants by providing shelter and food in ‘extrafloral nectaries’ (special flower-like structures) in exchange for protection. The name whistling thorn is derived from the whistling sounds made by the ant’s entrance holes into the hollow galls. These short trees grow in abundance whenever the soil becomes seasonally water saturated.

Grasses

Red Oat Grass (Themeda triandra)

Turning a light pinkish-red color as it dries, red out grass (kangaroo grass in Australia, or rooigras in Afrikaans) is one of the dominant grass species in woodlands and the the long-grass plains of Serengeti National Park. On the plains red out grass can grow so thick that it looks like a field of wheat, with its flat fan-like seeds waving in the wind. Wildebeest eat red oat grass, though it is consumed after more palatable grasses are exhausted.

Finger Grass (Digitaria macroblephora)

This is probably the most common grass in the Serengeti. Its nutritious leaves are preferred by many grazers, and on closer inspection it is challenging to find an individual that has not had a bite taken off. Like the name suggest, the seed heads look like thin fingers pointing up to the sky.

Pan Dropseed (Sporobolus ioclados)

This Sporobolus species, along with finger grass, is one of the two dominant species on the short-grass plains. Both species also grow in a dwarf form, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the two. The seed head of pan dropseed is shaped like a Christmas tree with the seeds dangling below the fronds like miniature ornaments which makes it distinctive from the other grasses.

Invasive plant species

Invasive plants, not endemic to the Serengeti, form a problem as they push away and replace the area’s original vegetation. The Mexican Marigold was introduced to the area with a shipment of wheat seeds: it is a quick growing weed and is making areas unfarmable, and is competing with crops and native plants. Other invasive species, such as Prickly Pear (Opuntia sp.), and Custard Oil (Rhoicissus sp.) also pose a serious threat. The threat of non-endemic species changing the vegetation of Serengeti National Park, and as a result wildlife behaviour, appears both real and immediate. Mexican marigold, prickly pear, and custard oil can be found inside the park, especially on the roadsides where the seeds carried by vehicle fires quickly take root.

Weather & climate Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti is a vast ecosystem with many seasonal differences in terms of weather and climate.

Serengeti National Park experiences a generally cool and and dry season from May to August; a dry and warmer season in September and October; and a wetter and hot season from November to April.

Temparatures in Serengeti

Although popular image dictates that Africa is mostly a very hot place, Serengeti’s climate is actually very pleasant and moderate. It seldom gets uncomfortably hot, and temperatures drop during the night and early mornings. The minimum and maximum temperatures vary with the seasons, with the wet season being the warmest. The Seronera area rarely exceeds 37 °C on a hot afternoon in the rainy season, and hardly ever dips below 13 °C on a cold early morning in the dry season.

The average maximum daily temperature changes with elevation: from 15°C near the crater highlands to about 30°C near Lake Victoria. Because of its altitude, Serengeti National Park is a ‘cool island' in a much warmer region.

Rainfall periods in Serengeti

There are two rainy periods in Serengeti National Park. The short rains from November to December are the first to break the grip of the dry season. These rains are unpredictable and are unlikely to interfere with your safari. The long rains follow the short rains in the period from March to May, which are the highest rainfall months. It seldom rains for the entire day, but please remember that it rains on most days. As a result, the landscape turns green and as a result this season is often dubbed the ‘green season’. Sometimes the rains fuse into one extended period, particularly in the north. Or the short rains may fail entirely, especially in the southeast of the Serengeti.

Rainfall gradient

There is a rainfall gradient from the dry southeast plains (400 mm per year) to the much wetter northwest near the Kenyan border and the Masai Mara (up to 1,200 mm per year). The low rainfall on the Serengeti plains is caused by the rain shadow of the Ngorongoro Crater Area and the Meru-Kilimanjaro mountain range. Prevailing south-easterly winds carrying moisture off the Indian Ocean are forced to rise over these highlands. As the air cools the moisture condenses and the water in the air rains out. However, shifting winds can carry moisture back inland from Lake Victoria, counteracting this effect, and inducing this rainfall gradient.