The Ngorongoro conservation area in northern Tanzania covers an area of 8,300 square kilometres. The nature reserve includes very diverse habitats: open grasslands, dense mountain forest, scrubland and heathlands. The Ngorongoro Crater is the main attraction of this area and is often referred to as the “eighth wonder of the world”. The crater is 610 meters deep and covers an area of about 260 square kilometers. The crater basin is the habitat of about 25,000 animals all year round. These include the so-called Big Five (lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo and rhinoceros) and many other species, with the exception of giraffes. It is also referred to as the largest zoo in the world.

In the nature reserve is the Olduvai Gorge, an important paleoanthropological site where the remains of some of the earliest human ancestors were found.