Lake Manyara national park is an iconic national park of the country. This is a protected area sandwiched between Tanzania’s Arusha and Manyara Regions.

The national park is administrated by the Tanzania National Parks Authority. Lake Manyara National park is a small park that covers 325 km2.

The national park is located 126km to the south-west to Arusha. You can reach the national park between one and a half or two hours. If you can reach Babati which is the capital of the Manyara region you can travelled to the national park. Lake Manyara airport is next to the capital city of the Manyara Region. You can get a charted flight too to reach the national park.

The Lake Manyara national park is bordered by Lake Manyara and Engaruka Basin to the west and north respectively. The area outside of the park belongs to Marang Forest Reserve and an important area for birders.

The park offers diverse vegetation with more than 670 flowering plant and fern species estimated. Most of them are found in various regions but few are endemic only to the region.

The Lake Manyara national park’s landscape is covered by swamps, grassy floodplains, groundwater forests dominated by Trichilia roka, and with Acacia as well as Commiphora woodlands. The swamps of the national park are created by the Simba River. The drier areas of the national park are covered with Cynodon dactylon and Sporobolus spicatus.

The national park has 2 extensive attractions; one is the Alkaline Lake Manyara and the other one is the flocks of pink flamingos. The alkaline lake covers most of the parts of the national park.

The alkaline lake is the lifeline for more than 390 species of birds. Out of which the vast range of pink flamingos is enough to capture the senses of the visitors. As estimation, there is more than 1,900,000 non-breeding Lesser Flamingo and 40,000 Greater Flamingos are residing. Apart from this, there have been more than 1,000,000-2,499,999 individual water birds that can be spotted.

You can spot following birds more widely;