This remote tract of land, covering 4 636km² / 2 880mi², offers one of the finest wilderness experiences in Zambia, if not Africa itself. In addition to strong populations of buffalo, predators (including wild dog) and elephant, there is a stable population of black rhino within the Special Protection Zone (SPZ) that enjoys intensive safety precautions and limited access, making this a Big Five destination in some areas of the park.

The beauty of visiting North Luangwa is the truly remarkable opportunities to experience Africa as it was. It is wild and untouched and you are simply an unobtrusive witness to its natural beauty and drama. Although declared a wilderness area, it was historically not open to anyone other than Game Department rangers for more than 30 years and was subject to rampant poaching through to the late 1980s. Remarkably, thanks to a strong partnership with Frankfurt Zoological Society, the park’s fortunes have been turned around and it now boasts the highest elephant population in the country alongside the significant increases in wildlife population numbers across the park and adjoining landscape as a result.

Park management sets a benchmark in Zambia for equitable and effective conservation measures and was admitted to the IUCN Green List of protected and conserved areas in 2022. Core to the success of this is the mission of ‘Linking Livelihoods and Landscape’, which centres on linking increased benefits to  communities to conservation through employment and nature-based sustainable livelihoods initiatives.

The DNPW partnership with FZS has been strengthened with an ambitious 20-year agreement with a strong drive to promote domestic tourism and affordable access to North Luangwa.

Under the name ‘Amatololo Experience’, the North Luangwa Conservation Programme (NLCP) has opened 200km / 124mi of self-drive roads outside the SPZ to allow for safe access to the national park along the Lufila and Luangwa Rivers. With additional support from NLCP, surrounding communities offer tented camps and campsites to enable affordable self-drive access and community benefit sharing linked to the conservation programme and the pristine wilderness of the landscape.

Like South Luangwa National Park, it lies on the western bank of the Luangwa River bordered on the other side by the dramatic Muchinga Escarpment which rises over 1 000m / 3 280ft from the valley floor. In North Luangwa, unlike SLNP, the escarpment and its foothills are accessible to self-drive tourists, providing access to the stunning miombo woodland and rivers flowing through the escarpment.

There are a number of tributaries running through the park and into the Luangwa that play an important ecological role in the area; two of these are perennial – the clear-flowing Mwaleshi and Lufila  rivers flow down the escarpment in a series of small waterfalls before meandering across the valley floor to the Luangwa river.

The vegetation ranges from cathedral mopane woodland through terminalia and burkea woodlands with riparian vegetation along the rivers; there is also some open grasslands and alluvial thicket leading to Miombo forest in and over the escarpment. Trees include the beautiful sausage tree, old gnarled mopane trees, ebony groves, vegetable ivory palms, red mahogany, leadwoods and mature canopies of brachestegia and julbernadia dominated miombo and for those tree enthusiasts the Trapnells Beak Pod Acacia (Aphanocalyx trapnellii) a rare find in Zambia, found along the Mwaleshi river in the escarpment, near the park entrance at Mano.