How big is Maasai Mara National Reserve?
The Maasai Mara National Reserve is internationally regarded as the most exceptional safari destination in Kenya’s safari crown with its open savanna grasslands, umbrella acacia trees and the most popular of all, the Great Wildebeest Migration. In safari planning, it is also important to know the size of the protected area of land.
The Maasai Mara, because it is more than an area with a fence around it, is a live, active, and enormous ecosystem. The area that the people experience when they come and visit is more than what is encompassed in the reserve and park boundaries. There is also an extensive system of life-sustaining land that allows wildlife to move freely. Therefore, in a more genuine attempt to answer the question “How big is the Maasai Mara?” one must think beyond the legal and prescribed boundary of the park and refer to the entire Greater Mara Ecosystem.
The Official Reserve: A Core of 1,510 Square Kilometers
The Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) itself is a defined, protected area of approximately 1,510 square kilometers (580 square miles). Within the reserve you will experience the most iconic parts of the park, including the famous Mara River, where the well-known river crossings of the Great Migration take place. For many years, this has been the destination of choice for tourists wanting the classic safari experience.
To put this size into a simpler perspective, the official reserve alone is bigger than many smaller countries and is a considerable piece of land. But for a landscape that hosts millions of migrating animals, 1,510 square kilometers is just the northern tip of a much, much larger territory. The size of the reserve has actually changed over the years; when it was first established as a wildlife sanctuary in 1961, it was slightly smaller and after various boundary changes, it settled on its area of today in the 1980s. The reserve is not fenced, and this is an important part of its ecological massiveness, allowing for a naturally open border with other conservation lands.
Conservancies: Enlarging the Protected Area.
By far, the most significant factor that exponentially increases the size of the protected area in the Maasai Mara is the surrounding network of Maasai Conservancies. The Conservancies are areas of land surrounding the main National Reserve, mostly to the north, east, and west, that the local Maasai landowners have set aside for wildlife protection and management, often in cooperation with or in conjunction with tourism operators. The Conservancy model is recognized around the world as a sustainable tourism model that allows local communities to reap some of the benefits of wildlife protection.
The conserved areas together add an additional 1,450 to over 2,000 sq. km of important wildlife habitat, essentially doubling the amount of land protected by humans from human settlement and human impacts. Well-known Conservancies included are the Mara North Conservancy (approximately 300 km²), the Mara Naboisho Conservancy (approximately 200 km²), and the Olare Motorogi Conservancy. These Conservancies are important for several reasons:
(1) Wildlife Dispersal Areas. These Areas are actually the ground on which animals feed, breed, and disperse outside of the main reserve.
(2) Migration Corridors. They provide a successful passage area for the Great Migration, which takes animals away from the Maasai Mara and back into the Serengeti.
When you take a safari at “Maasai Mara,” you usually visit both the ‘main’ national reserved area and one of these conservancies. The experience at a conservancy is often distinct: a more exclusive and secluded safari experience (fewer vehicles allowed) where you can do special game viewing activities, such as night game drives and guided walking safari activities, which are often not permitted at the main national reserved area. Therefore, the “safariable” or protected area of the Maasai Mara is essentially the size of the national reserve plus all the conservancies combined a humongous, contiguous wilderness.
The Greater Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem: Continental Size
To understand the true movement of the animals, particularly the Great Migration, it is vital to think of the Maasai Mara as part of an even larger, international wilderness, the Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem. This mammoth ecosystem encompasses both Kenya and Tanzania, with the Maasai Mara National Reserve simply being the northern extension of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, which is itself a massive, protected area, roughly 14,763 square kilometers (5,700 square miles).
The total area of the Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem is about 25,000 to 30,000 square kilometers (9,700 to 12,000 square miles) in size. This immense area of land is where the two million wildebeest, zebra and gazelles migrate to in their annual circular migration. These animals are not aware of the international boundary; they just follow the rain and the new grass.
Comparison to Other African Giants
The Maasai Mara, at 1,510 km squared, is relatively small in comparison to its southern neighbor (the Serengeti is about ten times larger), but its value lies in its diverse wildlife concentration. Due to its small size and lush grasslands, the density of wildlife, especially Big Cats (lion, leopard, and cheetah), is extremely high, especially during migration. It is often much easier to see a wide variety of wildlife in a shorter amount of time in the Mara compared to traveling long distances in the Serengeti.
To summarize, the Maasai Mara is not a singular number; it has an official size of 1,510 km squared; however, its true protected size is 3,000 to 3,500 km squared when including the conservancies, and its ecological size is a fairly small part of the 30,000 km squared Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem. This multi-layered size demonstrates the massive scale of this area and its global significance as one of Earth’s great and well-protected wildlife habitats.
For more information about the Maasai Mara National Reserve’s size or if you want to make an inquiry in Maasai Mara, kindly immediately contact us at African Vacation Safaris and then our safari experts will be more than ready to plan and then take you through the wonderful safari by designing for you the wonderful safari of your choice with your preferences and choices and you will not get disappointed.