NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA

• The Ngorongoro Crater is the largest intact volcanic caldera in the world.

The actual geological landform of the Ngorongoro Crater is in itself a marvel. It was formed over two million years ago by the explosion and collapse of a massive volcano—which some say would have been higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. Left behind was a depression more than 2,000 feet deep, with a floor covering 100 square miles: the largest intact volcanic caldera on the planet

• The Ngorongoro Crater has one of the densest wildlife populations in Africa.

Some 25,000 wild creatures live within the Ngorongoro Crater—which makes it one of the most concentrated repositories of wildlife on the entire African continent. Many of the residents here are ungulates (hoofed animals); among them, approximately 7,000 wildebeest, 4,000 zebras, 3,000 eland and 3,000 Thompson’s gazelles. These enormous herds in turn attract a large number of predators—like spotted hyena, cheetah, leopards, and most notably lions. In fact, though their numbers have fluctuated over the years, there have been many periods in which the crater houses Africa’s highest proliferation of lions per square mile.

• The Ngorongoro Crater was a stomping ground for some of the earliest-known humans.

Just west of the crater, and also included within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, are two of the most important archaeological sites in the world. The first is Olduvai Gorge, where in 1959 paleoanthropologists Louis and Mark Leakey famously discovered the remains of homo habilis, the first known human species, who lived in the region—foraging, scavenging, and using stone tools—some 2 million years ago.

South of Olduvai Gorge—and also neighbouring Ngorongoro Crater—is the spot where the Leakeys made an even more astounding find: The Laetoli footprints, a series of human tracks preserved in volcanic ash that dated back some 3.7 million years. These prints were, at the time of their discovery in the 1970s, the earliest known evidence of humans walking upright, on two feet. They were, and still are, considered one of the most critical breakthroughs in anthropological history.