Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park

‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ comes from the Kololo or Lozi language, and the name is now used throughout Zambia and in parts of Zimbabwe.

Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park covers 66 km² (25 sq mi) from the Songwe Gorge below the falls in a north-west arc along about 20 km (12 mi) of the Zambian river bank. It forms the south-western boundary of the city of Livingstone and has two main sections, each with separate entrances: a wildlife park at its north-western end and the land adjacent to the Victoria Falls themselves, which in the rainy season form the world's largest curtain of falling water. It extends downstream from the falls and to the south-east along the Batoka Gorges.

The wildlife section of the park

The wildlife park includes tall riverine forest with palm trees, miombo woodland and grassland with plenty of birds, and animals including Angolan giraffe, Burchell's zebra, warthog, sable, African buffalo, impala and other antelope. Animal numbers have fallen in droughts since 2000.

The park currently has ten southern white rhinos, including calves. These are not indigenous to Zambia; they were imported from South Africa (the indigenous black rhino had been extirpated from the county, though a pilot project is reintroducing them in North Luangwa National Park). The original introduction consisted of two rhinos; both were poached during the night of June 6, 2007. One was shot dead not far from the gate and its horn extracted; the other suffered serious bullet wounds but survived and still lives in the park under 24-hour surveillance. By 2009 the number of rhinos had been increased to five animals, with plans to introduce further ones in due course. As of 2022, there were 10 white rhinos in the park.

African elephants are often seen in the park when they cross the river in the dry season from the Zimbabwean side. Hippopotamus and crocodile can be seen from the river bank. Vervet monkeys and baboons are common, as they are in the rest of the national park outside the wildlife section. As of January 2009 the commercial wildlife company Lion Encounter has been operating a "walking with lions" experience within the park, with further plans to start a breeding program for the lions within the soon to be expanded Dambwa Forest section of the park.

Within the wildlife park is the Old Drift Cemetery, where the first European settlers were buried. They made camp by the river, but kept succumbing to a strange and fatal illness. They blamed the yellow-and-green-barked "fever trees" for this incurable malady, while all the time it was the malarial mosquito causing their demise. Before long the community moved to higher ground and the town of Livingstone emerged.