Ngorongoro National park
The main feature of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic Calder. The crater, which formed when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago, is 610 meters (2,000 feet) deep and its floor covers 260 square kilometers (100 square miles) . Although thought of as "a natural enclosure" for a very wide variety of wildlife, 20 percent or more of the wildebeest and half the zebra populations vacate the crater during the wet season.
The Munge Stream drains Olmoti Crater to the north (and is the main water source draining into the seasonal salt lake in the center of the crater. This lake is known by two names: Makat as the Maasai called it, meaning salt; and Magadi.
The Magadi Lake is often inhabited by thousands of mainly lesser flamingoes. Approximately 25,000 large animals, mostly ungulates, live in the crater. Large mammals in the crater include buffalo, hippo, blue wildebeest, zebra, eland, black rhino and waterbuck.
Local Knowledge
Situated in the Ngorongoro plains, an area called Olduvai Gorge which is considered to be the seat of humanity after the discovery of the earliest known specimens of the human genus, Homo habilis as well as early hominidae.