W National Park

Its name comes, unusually, from the letter W that the River Niger traces as it makes two pronounced meanders within the park, plain to anyone looking down from the air. Protected since 1954 and later extended by taking in the adjoining areas of Benin and Burkina Faso, it now forms the largest complex of contiguous protected areas in the whole of West Africa, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a transboundary property in 1996 (Niger) and extended in 2017. It is one of the last refuges of the West African lion, genetically distinct and far more threatened than the populations of eastern and southern Africa, with only a few hundred animals left across the entire region.