Amboseli covers 392 square kilometres at the heart of a much larger ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya–Tanzania border. It was set aside as a Maasai reserve in 1906, returned to local control in 1948, gazetted as a national park in 1974, and declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1991.
Its defining feature is water. Meltwater from Kilimanjaro filters underground and surfaces as permanent swamps in the middle of otherwise dry country, which is why elephant, buffalo and hippo concentrate here through the dry months while the surrounding plains empty out.
Amboseli’s elephants are among the most studied in the world — research here has run continuously since the early 1970s — and the population includes some of Africa’s last genuinely large-tusked bulls. On clear mornings, usually just after dawn, Kilimanjaro rises unobstructed behind them.