The National park was formerly Masai Amboseli Game Reserve in the Kajiado country Kenya. The park is 39,206 hectares in size at the core of an 8,000 km ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya – Tanzania border. The local people are mainly Maasai and the people from other parts of the country have settles there attracted by the successful tourist driven economy and the intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low rain fall area one of the best wildlife viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including the water birds like the pelicans, crakes, king fishers, hamerkop and 47 raptor species. This national park protects two of the five main swamps, and includes a dried up Plestocene Lake and the semiarid vegetation. This is the second most popular national park in Kenya after Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Amboseli National park was set aside as the southern Reserve for Maasai in 1906, but returned to local control as a game reserve in 1948. It was gazetted as a national park in 1974 to protect the unique ecosystem, it was also declared a UNESCO site in 1991. The park earned a lot of revenues for the country.

The Wildlife in the park

The park is so famous for being the best place in the world to get close to free ranging elephants. The other attractions of the park include the great opportunity of meeting the Maasai and visit the Maasai village. The park has views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the World. This park was home to Echo, which is the most researched elephant in the world, and the subject of many books and documentaries, followed for almost four decades by American Conservationist Dr Cynthia Moss. The park offers some of the best opportunities if seeing African wildlife because the vegetation is sparse due to the long dry months. This protected area is home to the African bush elephants, cape buffalo, impalas, lions, cheetah, spotted hyenas, zebras, Maasai giraffe, and the blue wildebeest as well as the many bird species.

How to access the park

The small Airport is in Amboseli Airport and it’s in Kajiado country, in Amboseli national park, in south central Kenya, close to the international border with the Republic of Tanzania. Its 156 kilometres by air, south of Nairobi international Airport, the country’s largest civilian airport. The Amboseli Airport serves Amboseli national park and it receives regular schedules service from Airkenya and the unscheduled service from the aircharter service providers.