Manas National Park

Manas National Park is a Wildlife Sanctuary, UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, a Project Tiger Reserve, an Elephant Reserve and a Biosphere Reserve in Assam, India located in the Himalayan foothills, it is contiguous with the Royal Manas National park in Bhutan. The park is known for its unusual and endangered endemic wildlife such as the Assam Roofed Turtle, Hispid Hare, Golden Langur and Pygmy Hog.Manas is famous for its population of the Wild water buffalo.

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary is positioned in the State of Assam in North-East India, a biodiversity hotspot covering an area of 39,100 hectares, it spans the Manas river and is bounded to the north by the forests of Bhutan the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary is part of the core zone of the 283,700 hectares Manas Tiger Reserve, and lies alongside the shifting river channels of the Manas River. Manas National Park includes a range of forested hills, alluvial grasslands and tropical evergreen forests also provides critical and viable habitats for rare and endangered species, including tiger, greater one-horned rhino, swamp deer, pygmy hog and Bengal florican. Manas has exceptional importance within the Indian sub-continent’s protected areas, as one of the most significant remaining natural areas in the region, where sizeable populations of a large number of threatened species continue to survive.

Manas takes its name from the Goddess Manasa.Manas National Park is noted for its spectacular scenery, with a variety of habitat types that support a diverse fauna, making it the richest of all Indian wildlife areas. Manas National Park represents the core of an extensive tiger reserve that protects an important migratory wildlife resource along the state of West Bengal (India) to state of Arunachal Pradesh(India) and Bhutan borders. Its wetlands are of international importance. It is also the single most important site for the survival of pygmy hog, hispid hare and golden langur the park, which includes part of Manas Reserve Forest and all of North Kamrup Reserve Forest, constitutes the core of Manas Tiger Reserve located in the forest divisions of Kachugaon, Haltugaon, Western Assam Wildlife and North Kamrup.

The Manas River flows through the western portion of the park, where it splits into 3 separate rivers, and joins the Brahmaputra some 64 km further south. These and other rivers running through the tiger reserve carry an enormous amount of silt and rock debris from the foothills, resulting from the heavy rainfall, fragile nature of the rock and steep-gradients of the catchments. This leads to the formation of alluvial terraces, comprising deep layers of deposited rock and detritus overlain with sand and soil of varying depth, shifting river channels and swamps the area of the Boki basin, in the west of the park, is sometimes inundated during the monsoon.