Nigeria's largest national park, in the mountains along the Cameroonian border, with the country's largest chimpanzee population.
Area
6,731 km²
Designated in
1991
Region
West Africa
The Gashaka mountains with montane forest and highland savannah
Gashaka Gumti National Park was established in 1991 in eastern Nigeria, between the states of Taraba and Adamawa, next to the Cameroonian border, and at some 6,731 km² it is the largest in the country.
Its relief is the most rugged in Nigeria: the Gashaka sector, to the south, is mountainous and reaches 2,400 metres at Chappal Waddi, the country's highest summit, while Gumti, to the north, is flat savannah. That range produces a mosaic of montane forest, gallery forest, wooded savannah and high-altitude grassland, with a diversity far greater than that of any other Nigerian protected area.
It holds Nigeria's most important chimpanzee population, of the Nigeria-Cameroon subspecies, the most threatened of all, the subject of a research project running continuously since the 1980s. There are also lion, elephant, buffalo, colobus monkeys and a birdlife of more than four hundred species. The park adjoins Faro National Park in Cameroon. Its main threats are Fulani pastoral transhumance within its boundaries, hunting and, over the past decade, the insecurity linked to armed groups in the region.
Ecosystems found in Nigeria, where Gashaka Gumti lies.
Which other parks are like this one?
Same country: Nigeria
Same country: Nigeria
Same type of protected area: National Park
Same type of protected area: National Park
Based on what we already know about this park.
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Climate
Tropical, Arid / desert
Threatened:,,,