About Chitwan

Royal Chitwan National Park , is the oldest national park of Nepal. Established in 1973, it was granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1984. It is home to at least 43 species of mammals, 450 species of birds, and 45 species of amphibians and reptiles. The area used to be known as the Chitwan Valley. It was a place for big game hunting and until 1950 it was a hunting reserve. At the park there is canoeing, elephant rides, and guided jungle walks.

Why visit Chitwan

View the endangered One Horned Indian Rhinoceros.
Chitwan is home to the Royal Bengal tigers.
One the few places in the sub continent where you can track animals on elephants.
One of the few protected area's in the sub continent where you can walk and track animals on foot.
Wildlife camps and lodges are based inside the national parks.

The name ‘Chitwan' has several possible meanings, but the most literal translation of the two NEPALI words that make it up: chit or chita (heart) and wan or ban (jungle), make one possible meaning - ‘the heart of the jungle'. It is one of the best studied protected areas in the subcontinent . A gharial breeding centre, funded by Frankfurt Zoological Society, was established at Kasara Durbar in 1977. More than 200 young have been reared and re-introduced to the wild. Chitwan supports the world's second largest population of Indian Rhinoceros and is also an important refuge for Tiger and Gharial. Large numbers of visitors are attracted to the area because of its exceptional natural beauty, with the distant Himalaya providing a spectacular backdrop to views of forested hills, grasslands, and great rivers.