Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a protected area and UNESCO world heritage site located in Ngorongoro district, 180 km (110 mi) west of Arusha City in Arusha Region within the crater highlands geological area of northeastern Tanzania. The area is named after Ngorongoro crater, a large volcanic caldera the area. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority administers the conservation area, an arm of the Tanzanian government, and its boundaries follow the boundary of the Ngorongoro district in Arusha Region. The western portion of the park abuts the Serengeti National Park, and the area comprising the two parks and Kenya’s Maasai Mara game reserve is home to Great Migration, a massive annual migration of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and other animals. The conservation area also contains Olduvai gorge, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world.
The 2009 Ngorongoro Wildlife Conservation Act placed new restrictions on human settlement and subsistence farming in the Crater, displacing Maasai pastoralist, most of whom had been relocated to Ngorongoro from their ancestral lands to the north when the British colonial government established Serengeti National Park in 1959.
The Pliocene Ngorongoro volcanic group consists of eight extinct shield volcanoes within the Eyasi half-garden, the eastern boundary marked by the Gregory Rift Western escarpment. The Lake Eyasi escarpment bounds the half-graben on the southwest. Within the complex, five volcanoes are dome-shaped cones, while three have calderas. Ngorongoro Volcano (2.5–1.9 Ma) is primarily basaltic trachyandesite. The caldera is fed by the Munge and Oljoro Nyuki Rivers, while the Ngoitokitok hot springs feed into the Goringop swamp. Lake Magadi is a shallow (1.7 m) alkaline lake. Other volcanoes within the complex include Olmoti (2.01–1.79 Ma), Empakaai, Loolmalasin, Sadiman (3.7 Ma), Lemagrut, and Oldeani. The northwest portion of the conservation area consists of the Serengeti Plains, the Salei Plains, the Oldupai Gorge, and the Gol Mountains inselbergs. These inselbergs are part of the Mozambique Belt quartzite and mica schist about (800–500 Ma) in age.
