North Luangwa

North Luangwa National Park was established in 1972 in eastern Zambia, in the valley of the Luangwa River, and protects some 4,636 km². Unlike its neighbour South Luangwa, it remains closed to general tourism: there is no road network and no permanent accommodation, and access is limited to a small number of operators who run walking safaris.

The Luangwa valley is a tectonic rift, the south-western end of the Great Rift Valley, and the river runs through it in very active meanders that abandon channels and form oxbow lagoons. The mopane savannah, the riverine forest and the floodplains support a very high density of wildlife, with large herds of Cape buffalo, lion, leopard, hippopotamus and one of the most important African wild dog populations in Africa.

Its most cited achievement is the return of the black rhino. The species became extinct in Zambia in the early 1990s through poaching, and from 2003 onwards animals from South Africa were reintroduced into this park, in a programme run by the Frankfurt Zoological Society with the Zambian government. The population has gradually consolidated and is today the only one in the country. The park is also the birthplace of the walking safari, a style developed in the Luangwa valley by the conservationist Norman Carr in the mid-twentieth century.