The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over 14,763 km2 (5,700 sq mi). It is located in eastern Mara Region and northeastern Simiyu Region and contains over 1,500,000 hectares (3,700,000 acres) of virgin savanna. The park was established in 1940.
The Serengeti is well known for the largest annual animal migration in the world of over 1.5 million blue wildebeest and 250,000 zebras along with smaller herds of Thomson’s gazelle’s and Eland The national park is also home to the largest lion population in Africa. It is under threat from deforestation, population growth and ranching.
In 1930, an area of 2,286 square kilometers (883 sq mi) was designated as a game reserve in southern and eastern Serengeti. In the 1930s, the government of Tanganyika established a system of national parks compliant with the convention relative to the preservation of fauna and flora in their natural state. The area became a national park in 1940. It was granted strict protection in 1948 when the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees was formed to administer the national park. The government restricted the movements of the resident Maasai people, and the park boundaries were finalized in 1951. In 1959, an area of 8,300 km2 (3,200 sq mi) was split off in the eastern part of the national park and re-established as Ngorongoro conservation area intended to accommodate the traditional land use interests of the Maasai people in a multiple land use area.
