Murchison falls national park

Size: 3,840km²

Murchison Falls became one of Uganda's first national parks in 1952. At Murchison Falls, the Nile squeezes through an 8-meter-wide gorge and plunges with a thunderous roar into the “Devil's Cauldron”, creating a trademark rainbow. The northern section of the park features savanna, borassus palms, acacia trees, and riverine woodland.

The south is dominated by woodland and forest patches. The 1951 film “The African Queen,” starring Humphrey Bogart, was filmed on Lake Albert and the Nile in Murchison Falls National Park.

Murchison Falls National Park lies at the northern end of the Albertine Rift Valley, where the sweeping Bunyoro escarpment tumbles into vast, palm-dotted savanna. First gazetted as a game reserve in 1926, it is Uganda's largest and oldest conservation area, housing 76 mammal species and 451 bird species.

The park is bisected by the Victoria Nile, which plunges 45meters over the remnant rift valley wall, creating the dramatic Murchison Falls, the centerpiece of the park and the final event in an 80-kilometer stretch of rapids.

The mighty cascade drains the last of the river's energy, transforming it into a broad, placid stream that flows quietly across the rift valley floor into Lake Albert. This stretch of river provides one of Uganda's most remarkable wildlife spectacles.

Regular visitors to the riverbanks include elephants, giraffes, and buffalo, while hippos, Nile crocodiles, and aquatic birds are permanent residents. Notable visitors to the park include Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, and several British royals.