Lake Mburo National Park
Lake Mburo National Park is Uganda’s second smallest National Park occupying only 260 square kilometers of wide and varying ecosystems that include savannah wood and grassland, wetlands, lakes among others.
Destination Highlights
Lake Mburo National Park is a compact gem, located conveniently close to the highway that connects Kampala to the parks of western Uganda. It is the smallest of Uganda’s savannah national parks and underlain by ancient Precambrian metamorphic rocks which date back more than 500 million years. It is home to 350 bird species as well as zebra, impala, eland, buffalo, oribi, Defassa waterbuck, leopard, hippo, hyena, topi and reedbuck.
Lake Mburo National Park Background Information
Together with 13 other lakes in the area, Lake Mburo forms part of a 50km-long wetland system linked by a swamp. Five of these lakes lie within the park’s borders. Once covered by open savanna, Lake Mburo National Park now contains much woodland as there are no elephants to tame the vegetation. In the western part of the park, the savanna is interspersed with rocky ridges and forested gorges while patches of papyrus swamp and narrow bands of lush riparian woodland line many lakes.
With a varied topography of marshland, acacia woodland, sweeping valleys, rock Kopjes and rolling hills, Lake Mburo National Park supports an impressive variety of flora and fauna, including some unique wildlife. Covering just 260 square kilometres, the park is one of Uganda’s smallest, but this makes for some easy and exciting explorations into its unusual and diverse terrains. The five lakes for which the park is also renowned create an area of abundant birdlife and some of Uganda’s finest scenery.
What to see and do
Some of the more unique wildlife in this park includes grazing animals such as the impala, and Lake Mburo is the only park in Uganda that supports this ecotone species.
Lake Mburo National Park is also home to the last Ugandan population of eland, the largest African antelope. Hyenas, leopards, buffalo, hippo, Burchell’s Zebra and warthog are all found in the acacia woods and grasslands that surround the lakes of the park. There is a good chance you will see crocodile, hippo, reedbuck and waterbuck here too, as well as some of the 315-strong bird species that have been recorded to date, including the elusive African finfoot. The wildlife is best enjoyed on a game drive or a guided walk and the guides are experience and knowledgeable at taking you to the best spots. There is also the opportunity here for boat safaris down Lake Mburo, horse-back safaris and night drives, for the chance to see the more nocturnal animals, such as leopard, hyena, civet and porcupine. The best end to the day is, of course, sundowners in the park, as the sun settles itself neatly below the horizon.
Where to find Lake Mburo National Park
