Selous Game Reserve - Safari Camps & Lodges
Southern Tanzania
Overview
Covering 45,000km² of wilderness, with grassy plains, open woodland, mountains and forests, the Selous Game Reserve (pronounced Selooo, to rhyme with Yahoo!, and named after the great explorer and hunter, Frederick Courtney Selous) is Africa's largest game reserve. It's about three times the size of South Africa's Kruger National Park, and twice the size of the Serengeti National Park! In a fitting tribute, it's also one of Tanzania's three World Heritage Sites.
4,480,000 ha. Contiguous with the Mikumi National Park (323,000 ha) and Udzungwa Mountains National Park (200,000 ha) in the northwest and Kilombero Game Controlled Area (530,000 ha) in the west, the area, with these protected areas, totals 5,710,000 ha. There is a buffer area of ~3,500,000 ha.
Selous is the largest Game Reserve in Africa, part of the Selous ecosystem of over 9,000,000 hectares which includes two National Parks and a Game Controlled Area. A large part of the Reserve is drained by the Rufiji River, the largest river in east Africa, which, with its tributary the Ruaha, drains most of south-central Tanzania and is formed where the Ruaha and Luwegu rivers join above the Shughuli Falls. Tributaries in the southwest include the Kilombero, Luhombero, Mbarangandu and Njenji rivers, which are the main permanent streams. Below the Rufiji-Ruaha confluence there is a stretch of lakes and swamps. The southeast border is drained by the Matandu river, the northern border by the Mgeta.
The centre of the Reserve is a flat to rolling landscape with alluvial valleys and protruding inselbergs largely underlain by the Karoo sandstone and metamorphosed upper PreCambrian schists and gneisses with granite outcrops. It is covered by thickets and closed woodland; the south is hilly, rugged and forested. The southwestern Mbarika Mountains reach 1,300m; the west is mountainous and forested with intervening wet lowlands. The east and north are treed grassland on alluvial hardpan, in places seasonally flooded by the Rufiji, which can rise 5 metres. The soils of the Rufiji basin are highly leached; acidic and nutrient-poor, unsuited to agriculture and in the south are alkaline sands over hardpan. Erosion is accentuated by the frequent fires and heavy November rains which result in rivers of sand (Stephenson, 1990).
Accommodation
at Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania
Eyes on Africa recommends
the following accommodations in or very near to Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve...
click the links below for complete
information
on
(and photos
of)
the specific
safari camp or lodge.
Accommodations at Selous Game Reserve
• Kiba Point
• Sand Rivers Selous
• Siwandu Camp
Top 
Return to Map
of Tanzania
For History & General information about Tanzania, click More
Tanzania
For
information about the National Parks of Tanzania, click Tanzania
Parks
