Ngorongoro Crater (World’s Largest Caldera) Facts, And Size
Ngorongoro Crater (World’s Largest Caldera) Facts, Rim, Size, Depth, Safaris, Animals, Formation, Photos, Accommodation, Volcano Eruption & Reviews. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is most famous for the Ngorongoro Crater, the largest unfilled volcanic caldera in the world. It has the highest concentration of species in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and is the largest and most beautiful of the craters there. Due to its stunning natural beauty, it is also considered one of Africa’s Seven Wonders. Over twenty-five thousand animals, including the “big five” (elephants, buffalo, rhinoceroses, lions, and leopards), call the Ngorongoro Crater home.
Hippos, hyenas, warthogs, zebras, elands, gazelles, and wildebeests are just few of the other creatures that inhabit this crater. This makes Ngorongoro Crater a prime location in Tanzania for viewing wildlife, especially the “big five.”
Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area, Tanzania
Facts About Ngorongoro Crater:
2.5M YEARS AGO (FORMED), 260 ㎢ COVERED AREA, 20 ㎢ DIAMETER, 610 m CALDERA DEPTH, 25,000+ANIMALS
The Ngorongoro Crater
The greatest places to take pictures and look at the scenery are the crater’s rim and bottom. A quick check at the settlements and cemeteries of the area’s first residents will reveal why historians consider the crater to be the planet’s best place for humans and nature to interact together.
Craters are what remain after the collapse of the volcano caldera’s cone, as evidenced by geological records. The Maasai term “orgirra le kkorongorro,” which translates to English as “Big Bowl,” inspired the site’s moniker. In earlier records of the region, the word “kkorongorro” was misspelled as “Ngorongoro,” leading to the present-day name of the complex, deep “caldera/crater” known as “Ngorongoro.”
The Ngorongoro Crater is a bizarre geographical formation that is home to a wide variety of animal and plant species due to its abundance of grasslands, wetlands, rivers, and forests. Since animals are able to freely enter and exit the area throughout the year, it has gained renown as a prime location for wildlife observation by people from all over the world.
Continual tectonic processes and movements roughly 2.5 million years ago caused a gigantic volcano (almost the size of the present-day Mount Kilimanjaro) to explode and collapse, creating the Ngorongoro Crater. This huge volcanic caldera fell to a depth of 610 meters, and its surrounding area is over 260 square kilometers in size.
What to see in Ngorongoro Crater
Vast wildlife species including ‘The Big Five’, grasslands, swamps, rivers, and woodlands
What to do in Ngorongoro Crater
Game Drive, Filming, Photographic Safaris, Birdwatching, Nature walks, Bush dining, Sun downing
Detailed Map of Ngorongoro Crater
Plan your trip to Ngorongoro with these three maps of Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the crater including roads and wildlife spots.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Tours
Most visitors to Ngorongoro Crater also go on a safari in the nearby Serengeti National Park. The Crater Highlands, studded with deep volcanic craters, are protected by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro is unrivaled as a natural wildlife refuge, and for good reason: it is the largest complete caldera in the world. Tours of the Ngorongoro Crater provide the finest opportunity in Tanzania to see the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and black rhino) on a single game drive. The lush plains of the lake-studded crater floor and the towering 600m-/1,968ft-high cliffs that enclose it on all sides make for a breathtaking panorama, making this crater one of the most photogenic in the world.
Best Time to Visit the Ngorongoro Crater
Even though the roads around the caldera can become quite muddy, the ideal time to visit the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania is between April and May. This time of year there are significantly fewer visitors, and the crater is verdant and green in contrast to the dusty dry-season landscape. During the peak season from July to September, and again during the calving season from December to February, which follows the November rainfall, a large number of visitors can be expected.
The question of when to go on Ngorongoro Crater excursions is less about maximizing your game viewing experience and more about how many other people and vehicles you wish to share the crater with.
