Yala

Declared in 1938 on the basis of a game reserve set up by the British in 1900, Yala is now celebrated for holding one of the highest documented leopard densities in the world — an endemic island subspecies (Panthera pardus kotiya) which, having no tigers or lions to compete with as elsewhere in Asia, has become the dominant predator and is unusually visible even by day. The park also holds ancient Buddhist ruins, among them the rock sanctuary of Sithulpahuwa, over 2,000 years old, evidence that the area was a place of pilgrimage long before it was ever a protected area.