Located between the Serengeti and Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is home to the famous volcanic Ngorongoro Crater and is one of Tanzania's most popular wildlife viewing areas. This huge volcanic crater has a permanent supply of water, which draws thousands of animals who stay in this area rather than migrating.
Visitors come here primarily for viewing large animals and bird watching. Thousands of animals can be seen on the crater floor, including lions, elephants, rhinos, Thomson's gazelles, and buffaloes, but wildebeests and zebras account for over half of the animals that call the Ngorongoro Crater home.
At approximately 19km2 in diameter and around 600m in depth, then Ngorongoro crater itself is the world's largest intact Caldera, classified as UNESCO World heritage site. The volcano is thought to have blown its top inwardly from a large volcano around 2 million years ago, with much of the debris landing on Ndutu plains on south part of Serengeti attracting the most Wildebeest due to its high mineral content in the grass. To creme this, it has resident game year round including some of Africa's largest elephant.
The area has the best accommodation facilities to choose from the rim of the crater hotels or along the slopes of the volcano. One can always visit Empakaai crater or Olduvai Gorge, Ngoitokitok springs where pods of hippo are found and Gorigor swamp.
