This 9,050 square km park's focal point is the Luangwa river. It's the park's life blood and the water system which gives the South Luangwa its rich, lush vegetation in the summer months, drying almost to nothing in the harsh bareness of winter.

When it's full, the river is filled with hippos, crocodile and birdlife. It's life-preserving waters fill ox-bow lagoons which in turn provide waterholes to a huge variety of game, from antelopes to large predators, which make up the park's 60 different animal species. This is complemented by more than 400 different bird species, more than 40 of which are raptors.

The park is legendary for its huge herds of elephants, but there are more unusual inhabitants here too - Thornicroft's giraffe is indigenous to the park, as is Crawshay's zebra, a subspecies of the common Burchells zebra. The difference is in the stripes - Burchell's zebra has "shadow�" stripes between each stripe, whereas Crawshay's doesn't. There are also small herds of Cookson's wildebeest, a rare gnu sub-species which is also unique to the Luangwa.

Other areas of interest in Zambia:
Kafue National Park | Lower Zambezi National Park | Victoria Falls

Other regions in close proximity to Zambia:
Botswana | Victoria Falls | Namibia