Ikorongo Game Reserve

The other half of a single administration

Ikorongo Game Reserve adjoins Serengeti National Park in Serengeti district, Mara Region. The Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority gives its area as 558.9 square kilometres and its gazettement as a protected area on 10 June 1994 — the same date as its neighbour — and the two are run together as one administration, the Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves, from an office at Mugumu.

The name comes from the roan antelope, korongo.

Because the two reserves share an administration, almost everything TAWA publishes about the pair applies here: the same activity list, the same climate, the same access. Rather than repeat it, this page points at the fuller treatment on Grumeti Game Reserve and sets out what is specific to Ikorongo.

What is specific to Ikorongo

Ikorongo sits on the Serengeti’s boundary in the country the migration uses when it moves between the northern part of the park and the western corridor, and TANAPA names it among the components of the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem in its own Serengeti brochure. UNESCO’s assessment of the Serengeti property makes the same point: the national park by itself is not large enough to protect the whole ecosystem, and the reserves on its flanks carry part of that.

Access, as at Grumeti, is through concession arrangements rather than a public gate. TAWA describes both reserves as hunting concessions where the most popular activity taking place is photographic tourism, and lists game viewing, birdwatching, walking safaris, bush meals, camping, sundowners, night game drives and balloon safaris among the activities conducted in them.

That list is the reason a concession stay gets added to a Serengeti itinerary. Night game drives are not run inside Serengeti National Park, and walking safaris are more freely available on a concession than in the park. The list is TAWA’s statement of what may be conducted in the reserves rather than an inventory of what any particular concession sells, so it is worth confirming the specifics. The great migration safari guide covers where the herds are likely to be and when.

TAWA gives the shared climate as 15 to 28 °C, with short rains from September to December, long rains from March to May, a high season between June and October and a low season in January and February. The Rubana River forms the northern boundary of the two reserves with the villages beyond.

Two figures that do not agree

TAWA’s reserve page gives Ikorongo as 558.9 square kilometres and Grumeti as 434.5, a combined 993.4. TAWA’s own protected-areas register lists the two together as 5,000 square kilometres, gazetted in 1994 under Government Notice 214. The two published figures differ by a factor of five, both come from the same authority, and neither is qualified. Both are recorded here.

Entry here is charged by TAWA rather than under the national park booklet. TAWA publishes US$50 for a non-citizen adult and US$30 for a child per 24 hours at Ikorongo, Grumeti, Selous and Maswa, with a further US$25 per person per day where a camp or lodge inside a game reserve is used. Neither schedule carries an effective date or a Government Notice number, which is the practical difference from a TANAPA rate; the guide to what a Tanzanian safari costs beyond the ground arrangement sets out how the fee layer is built.

Getting there

The reserves are reached from Mugumu, 32 kilometres away, from Musoma at 120 kilometres, from Mwanza at 260, or from Arusha at 350 kilometres by way of Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. The Fort Ikoma airstrip is about three kilometres from the reserves. The guide to reaching the Serengeti’s western flank turns those distances into drive times and covers what flying in changes.

Common questions about Ikorongo Game Reserve