Overview

Size: 3,840km²

Murchison Falls was first gazetted as a game reserve in 1926 and later became one of Uganda’s first national parks in 1952 and since then has received millions of visitor including, Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway and several British royal.

The 1951 film “The African Queen” starring Humphrey Bogart was filmed on Lake Albert and the Nile in Murchison Falls National Park

The park is bisected by the Victoria Nile, which plunges 45m over the remnant rift valley wall, creating the dramatic Murchison Falls, the centre piece of the park.

Species

About 109 species of mammals have been recorded in this park and four of the “Big Five” are present. The list include huge herds of buffaloes and elephants, leopards, lions, Rothschild giraffes, Jackson’s hartebeest, bushbucks, Uganda kob, waterbucks and warthogs, oribi and Uganda kob, crocodiles, hippos among other.

Primates include Olive baboons which can be seen along the roadsides, Blue and red-tailed monkeys and black-and-white colobus can be found in the forested sectors. The savanna-dwelling patas monkey is only found here and in Kidepo Valley National Park. Around 800 chimpanzees live in the Kaniyo Pabidi and Budongo Forests.

Over 451 bird species have been recorded in this park and the list includes the Shoebill Stork, the Goliath Heron – the largest heron in the world – and pairs of elegant Grey Crowned Cranes – Uganda’s national bird. Also seen along the banks of the Nile are the Blue-headed Coucal, Swamp Flycatcher, Squacco Heron, African Jacana, Sandpipers, Denham’s Bustard, Abyssinian Ground-Hornbill, Black-billed Barbet, Black-headed Gonolek, Eastern Grey Plantain-eater, Piapiac, Silverbird, Weaver Birds, Pied, Giant and Malachite Kingfishers, Red-throated Bee-eater, White-browed Sparrow Weaver, Speckle-fronted Weaver and African Quail-Finch among others