Kaziranga

Kaziranga National Park, on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra in Assam, contains two-thirds of the world's remaining Indian one-horned rhinoceros population — roughly 2,600 animals in 430 square kilometres of dense elephant grass, forest, and wetland.

The annual flooding of Kaziranga is not a disaster but a mechanism: the Brahmaputra inundating the park each June and July removes old grass and deposits mineral-rich silt that supports the next year's growth, and the rhinos, tigers, and elephants simply move to higher ground until the water recedes. The rhinos move through the tall grass with the assurance of an animal that has no natural predator capable of threatening it, and watching one at close range from the back of a domestic elephant is a wildlife encounter unlike anything else in India.

The tiger density at Kaziranga — estimated at one per five square kilometres in the core zone — rivals Bandhavgarh and is rarely discussed because the park's rhinos receive all the attention. The tigers here are larger than elsewhere in India, drawing on a prey base of deer, hog deer, and wild buffalo that the productive wetland ecosystem supports in exceptional numbers.

Places to Visit in Kaziranga

• Kaziranga rhino safari zones
• Brahmaputra floodplain
• Mihimukh viewpoint

Things to Do in Kaziranga

• Jeep safari for rhino sightings
• Elephant-back safari
• Birdwatching in the grasslands