Ngorongoro Conservation Area

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a protected area in the Crater Highlands of northern Tanzania, established in 1959. Its centrepiece is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest intact, unflooded volcanic caldera, approximately 19 km in diameter and 600 metres deep. The crater floor hosts roughly 25,000 large animals including the endangered black rhinoceros, lions, elephants, buffalo and vast herds of wildebeest and zebra. The nearby Olduvai Gorge is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, where Louis and Mary Leakey discovered key hominin fossils. The conservation area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1979) and uniquely allows Maasai pastoralists to coexist with wildlife inside the crater.