Serengeti National Park

The plain that runs on forever

At 14,763 square kilometres, the Serengeti is Tanzania’s third-largest national park and the anchor of the entire Northern Circuit — roughly the size of Northern Ireland, protected since 1940 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. Its name comes from the Maasai word siringet, “the place where the land runs on forever,” and from the open plains in the south it is not an exaggeration: short grass runs unbroken to the horizon in every direction, interrupted only by granite kopjes rising like islands out of the grass. The wider Serengeti–Mara ecosystem, spanning into Kenya’s Maasai Mara, covers some 30,000 square kilometres and supports the largest concentration of plains game left on earth.

The Great Migration, month by month

Over 1.5 million wildebeest and around 250,000 zebra move through the Serengeti in a roughly clockwise loop dictated entirely by rainfall and grass, not by any fixed calendar — which is why honest operators talk in probabilities, not guarantees. Calving concentrates on the short-grass plains in the south, around the Ndutu area straddling the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area boundary, from roughly January to March, when several thousand calves are born daily and predator action is correspondingly intense. From April to June the herds drift northwest through the Western Corridor and its Grumeti River crossings. Between roughly July and October they push north toward the Mara River, where the crossings — crocodile-filled, chaotic, and the single most-photographed event in African wildlife — concentrate around the Kogatende area. By November the rains pull the herds south again, closing the loop.

Africa's largest lion population

Five regions, one park

Central Serengeti, around Seronera, holds resident wildlife year-round regardless of where the migration sits, and is usually the strongest choice for a first safari or a short visit: the Seronera River sustains game through the dry months when the rest of the park empties out, and the surrounding kopjes are reliable for lion and leopard. The park also holds Africa’s largest lion population, along with strong resident numbers of leopard, cheetah, elephant and buffalo, and more than 500 recorded bird species. Western Corridor, Northern (Kogatende/Mara), Southern (Ndutu) and Eastern Serengeti each have a different peak season tied to the migration’s movement, which is why the honest answer to “when should I go” is always “which part of the migration do you want to see,” not a single best month.

How it connects to the rest of the circuit

Most visitors reach the Serengeti overland from Ngorongoro, entering through Naabi Hill Gate as the highland forest opens onto the plains, though flights into Seronera, Kogatende or other airstrips can convert a driving day into game-viewing time on shorter trips. It anchors nearly every itinerary we run, from the fast-paced 3-Day Serengeti Express to the full 8-Day Full Northern Circuit, and pairs naturally on the calendar with a dedicated calving-season safari in the green months or a river-crossing itinerary when the herds are north.