Hemis

Declared in 1981 in Ladakh, in India's far north, it is the country's only protected area in the Palaearctic ecozone, with a climate and wildlife closer to Central Asia than to the rest of the Indian subcontinent. It holds the highest known snow leopard density of any protected area on the planet, which has made Hemis the world's foremost destination for seeing this extraordinarily elusive cat — helped by open terrain and by abundant populations of bharal, the Himalayan blue sheep that is its main prey, which make it easier to watch through the winter months.