Amboseli National Park: Where Africa’s Giants Walk Beneath Mount Kilimanjaro
Amboseli National Park sits in southern Kenya, in Kajiado County, about 240 kilometres from Nairobi. It spans 392 square kilometres, compact by Kenya’s standards, and it sits at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, whose snow-capped peak rises just 40 kilometres to the south across the Tanzania border.
The name Amboseli comes from the Maa language of the Maasai people and means “salty dust place”, a name that captures the alkaline floodplains that define much of the park’s landscape. But beneath that dry, dusty surface lies a different world entirely. Underground water from Kilimanjaro’s glaciers feeds permanent swamps inside the park, Enkiama, Longinye, Olokenya, which sustain wildlife year-round and create the lush, green heart of the park that visitors always find surprising when they first see it.
Amboseli National Park is a UNESCO. Biosphere Reserve and one of Kenya’s premium parks, managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). It is the second-most visited national park in Kenya. With the Masai Mara National Reserve, and for one specific reason above all others: the elephants.
