Mana Pools

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Mana Pools National Park, Sapi and Chewore Safari Area*
UNESCO World Heritage Site

State Party	Zimbabwe
Type	Natural
Criteria	vii, ix, x
Reference	302
Region†	Africa
Inscription history
Inscription	1984 (8th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO.

Mana Pools is a wildlife conservation area in Western Zimbabwe constituting a National Park. It is a region of the lower Zambezi River in Zimbabwe where the flood plain turns into a broad expanse of lakes after each rainy season. As the lakes gradually dry up and recede, the region attracts many large animals in search of water, making it one of Africa's most renowned game-viewing regions.

Mana means ‘four’ in Shona, in reference to the four large permanent pools formed by the meanderings of the middle Zambezi. These 2,500 square kilometres of river frontage, islands, sandbanks and pools, flanked by forests of mahogany, wild figs, ebonies and baobabs, is one of the least developed National Parks in Southern Africa. It was saved from a hydro-electric scheme in the early eighties which would have seen the flooding of this subsequent World Heritage site. It has the country’s biggest concentration of hippopotamuses and crocodiles and large dry season mammal populations of elephant and buffalo.