Selous National Park

Tanzania, and for that matter much of Africa, is like an upside down saucer. Interrupted only by few unique features such as Mount Kilimanjaro, the continent slope gently down towards the sea from its central plateus.

The Selous Game Reserve, from 1,250 m above the sea level lies mostly on the coastal plain stretching to the Indian Ocean where the multiple deltas of the Rufiji River empty into the Sea opposite Mafia Island.

There is broken and hilly country to the South and East of the reserve, with a range of highlands in the south known as Mbarika Mountain. Most of the northern sector of the Selous lies directly on the coastal plain and is less than 100 meters above sea level.

The Selous has four major soil types. These are black cotton soil, sandy soil in the east, hard soil and soils derived from gravel.

The Selous has very diverse flora with over 2,000 plant species, 19 vegetation associations in the eastern part of reserve. Roughly 75 percent of the Selous is cloaked in Miombo woodland.

In Selous you will see attraction such as large numbers of elephants, black rhinoceroses, cheetahs, giraffes, hippopotamuses and crocodiles live in this immense sanctuary, which measures 50,000 km2 and is relatively undisturbed by human impact. The park has a variety of vegetation zones, ranging from dense thickets to open wooded grasslands.