Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Named as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is one of the most surprising destinations on the continent. Located in the Crater Highlands of northern Tanzania, the conservation area is one of the country’s most well-known safari hotspots, home to extraordinary wealth and variety of wildlife.

It’s named after the great Ngorongoro Crater, an antique volcanic crater spanning 260 square kilometers, surrounded by a 600-meter-high crater wall. It’s the world’s largest intact and unfilled caldera, which alone is home to over 25,000 large game animals.

Game Drives in Ngorongoro Crater

It’s also one of the few places in Africa where you can see all of the Big Five (elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, and buffalo) in a single day, and the conservation area protects Tanzania’s last remaining population of the endangered black rhino.

You’ll have the chance to see spotted hyenas, slinking cheetah, the elusive leopard, large herds of buffalo and gazelle, and even the critically endangered African wild dog. Head to the glittering soda lakes, and you’ll spot hippos and huge pink flocks of flamingo.

If you arrive during the Great Migration, you’ll witness nearly two million wildebeest, zebra, and antelope making their thundering mass movement clockwise Serengeti National Park and Ndutu Area in Ngorongoro.

The conservation area has been home to human dynasties for around three million years and has been occupied by pastoralist tribes, including the Maasai, for the past 2,000 years.

Maasai Villages in Ngorongoro.

You can visit the Maasai cultural village, and also Olduvai Gorge, where the discovery of petrified footprints was made, proving that humans were walking on two legs at least 3,7 million years ago. As one of the most important discoveries in history, which changed our understanding of human evolution, this is an incredible site to witness, and you can see casts of the footprints at Olduvai Gorge Museum.