A protected area since 1940, the Serengeti gained National Park status in 1951 with extensive boundary modifications in 1959. Serengeti comes from the Maasai word "Siring" meaning "Endless Plain": hundreds of kilometers of...
...flat surface land, often referred to as "The Sea of Grass On Plains". It was internationally recognised as part of Serengeti-Ngorongoro Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme in 1981 and entered in the World Heritage List the same year. The National Park, with an area of 12,950 square kilometres, is as big as Northern Ireland, but its ecosystem, which includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area,
the Maswa Game Reserve and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, is roughly the size of Kuwait. Its landscape, originally formed by volcanic activity, has been sculptured by the concerted action of wind, rain and sun. Small rivers, lakes and swamps are scattered throughout. In the South-east rise the great volcanic massifs and craters of the Ngorongoro Highlands.
The Serengeti is famed for its Annual Migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200,000 zebra and 300,000 Thomson's gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing. Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most spellbounding game-viewing in Africa. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich and bizarre secretary bird of the open grassland, to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.
Travellers are not the only ones who now flock to see the animals and birds of the Serengeti. It has become an important centre of scientific research.
The Serengeti Research Institute, founded in 1962 at Seronera, has continued its work, providing not only valuable information for the management and conservation of game parks but also original research in ecology and ethology.
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