Mudumalai

Mudumalai National Park lies in the state of Tamil Nadu, on the north-eastern slope of the Nilgiri hills, and protects some 321 km² at the point where the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka meet. Its designation goes back to 1940, which makes it one of the oldest protected areas in southern India.

Its principal value is connectivity: it forms a continuum of protected forest with the national parks of Bandipur and Nagarhole in Karnataka and with the Wayanad sanctuary in Kerala, and that whole constitutes one of the most important territories in Asia for the Asian elephant, with one of the largest wild populations of the species left. It also holds Bengal tiger, leopard, gaur, sambar deer, chital and a very rich birdlife.

The vegetation is a mosaic running from moist deciduous forest to dry deciduous and thorn forest according to the rainfall gradient, which explains its diversity. Mudumalai forms part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, established in 1986 as India's first and recognised by UNESCO in 2000, which at 5,520 km² is the largest protected forest area in the country. The park is also one of the components of the Western Ghats World Heritage property through the Nilgiri sub-cluster.