Kidepo Valley National Park

Gazetted in 1962 - the year Uganda gained independence - Kidepo Valley National Park protects 1,442 square kilometers of untamed wilderness in the remote Karamoja sub-region. Flanked by Mount Morungole and bounded by the international borders of South Sudan and Kenya, the park comprises two distinct river valleys: the Narus Valley in the south and the Kidepo Valley in the north.

The lifeblood of the park is the broad, fertile Narus Valley. While the Kidepo River dries into a wide bed of white sand lined by borassus palms during the dry season, the Narus Valley retains permanent water swamps and remnant oases. This creates a high concentration of big game, including thousands-strong Cape buffalo herds, Nubian giraffes, plains zebras, elephants, lions, cheetahs, and spotted hyenas. Kidepo’s geographical isolation protects a unique semi-arid biodiversity not found anywhere else in Uganda, including dry-country species like the ostrich, caracal, aardwolf, bat-eared fox, and kudus. Rich in indigenous cultural history, the park’s surrounding lands are inhabited by the traditional pastoralist Karamojong people and the endangered Ik tribe - an isolated hunter-gatherer community dwelling high on the peaks of Mount Morungole.