Liuwa Plain National Park

Lore & Background

Liuwa Plain National Park lies within the Barotse Floodplain, bounded by the Luambimba and Luanginga rivers. Its grasslands support tens of thousands of blue wildebeest, whose annual migration is the second-largest in Africa. The park also hosts predators such as cheetah, spotted hyena, and lion, and over 300 bird species have been recorded. Tourism was limited until recently, with only 50 visitors in 2000 and fewer than 800 in 2014.

Reader's Guide

The park's significance stems from its history as a royal hunting ground and its role in conservation recovery. After decades of poaching and trophy hunting, which nearly eradicated lions and other large mammals, African Parks assumed management in 2003 and stabilized populations. The story of Lady Liuwa, the lone lioness who survived until 2017, drew international attention and led to the reintroduction of lions and African wild dogs. The park's wildebeest migration remains a major ecological event, and improved management has restored local interest in preservation. The opening of King Lewanika Lodge and regular flights from Lusaka have increased accessibility, though tourism remains modest.

Did You Know?

• The park's name 'Liuwa' means 'plain' in the Lozi language, of which it is a dialect.
• Lady Liuwa was the subject of a National Geographic documentary titled 'The Last Lioness'.
• African wild dogs were reintroduced to the park in 2021, with the population growing to 25 individuals.
• Lichtenstein's hartebeest are scheduled to be reintroduced in late 2025, after disappearing 50 years earlier.

Royal Roots and the Road to Protection

The story of Liuwa Plain begins long before any government agency drew a boundary on a map. In the early 1880s, Lubosi Lewanika, the Litunga who led the Lozi people of Barotseland from 1878 until his death in 1916, set aside this stretch of grassland as a personal hunting ground and, crucially, as a protected area. The very name "Liuwa" carries the meaning of "plain" in the local Liuwa dialect, a branch of the Lozi language, embedding the landscape's identity in the culture of the people who first stewarded it. For nearly a century the land remained under royal and then state oversight, receiving formal national park status in 1972 when Zambia's government assumed management. Yet that designation alone could not curb the rising tide of poaching that followed. A turning point arrived in 2003, when the conservation nonprofit African Parks stepped in to co-manage the 3,369-square-kilometre park alongside the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and the Barotse Royal Establishment. The partnership reconnected the park's governance to its royal heritage, and local communities report a renewed sense of pride and investment in preserving the plain and its wildlife.

A Sea of Grass and the Great Migration

Nestled within the Barotse Floodplain and hemmed in by the Luambimba River to the north and the Luanginga to the south, Liuwa Plain is dominated by a vast grassland stretching roughly 72 by 32 kilometres. The terrain is dotted with raffia palms and scattered woodlands, while the ground itself is carpeted by species such as Echinochloa stagnina, Vossia cuspidata, Baikiaea plurijuga, and Terminalia sericea, all of which provide critical forage for the herbivores that depend on them. It is this open grassland that fuels one of the continent's most spectacular natural events: the annual blue wildebeest migration, the second-largest in Africa. A 1991 census estimated 30,000 wildebeest alongside 800 tsessebe, 1,000 zebra, and roughly 10,000 other large mammals including Cape buffalo, eland, red lechwe, reedbuck, roan antelope, and Lichtenstein's hartebeest. The plain also shelters more than 300 recorded bird species, making it a biodiversity hotspot that, until very recently, saw very few human visitors.

Lady Liuwa and the Lion Comeback

By the 1990s, relentless poaching and trophy hunting had wiped out nearly every lion in Liuwa, leaving behind a single female who first appeared in records in 2002. She became known as Lady Liuwa, and local staff wove her into the park's folklore, describing her as the reincarnation of Mambeti, a Lozi woman buried in the woodlands the lioness was said to visit repeatedly. In 2010, National Geographic released a documentary, The Last Lioness, that brought her solitary existence to a global audience. Her story took a somber turn in 2008, when an attempted male introduction ended in the animal's death during transport. Two males brought in the following year mated with Lady Liuwa, but she proved infertile, and both eventually wandered into Angola. Lady Liuwa herself died of natural causes in 2017. Yet her legacy proved catalytic: African Parks continued introducing lions, and the population has since grown to approximately twenty resident animals that are actively breeding. The park has held Lion Conservation Unit status since 2005, anchoring these efforts in a formal framework.

From Extinction's Edge to a Thriving Ecosystem

The 1990s and 2000s brought devastating losses to Liuwa's fauna; surveys suggested that Cape buffalo, eland, Lichtenstein's hartebeest, and roan antelope may have been locally eradicated. The arrival of African Parks in 2003 marked a decisive shift. Protections tightened, and populations that had been in freefall began to stabilize. Eland and buffalo were reintroduced, zebra numbers climbed past 4,000, and in late 2025 Lichtenstein's hartebeest returned to the plain for the first time in fifty years. The recovery extended to predators as well: in late 2021, eleven African wild dogs—eight males from South Africa and three females from Kafue National Park—were brought together in a split-compartment enclosure to bond before their April 2022 release, and the pack has since grown to twenty-five. On the tourism front, the park went from hosting just fifty visitors in 2000 to fewer than eight hundred by 2014. The US$1.6 million King Lewanika Lodge, a six-villa, fifteen-guest property funded jointly by African Parks and Norman Carr Safaris, along with helicopter access and planned regular Lusaka-to-Kalabo flights, has begun opening the plain to a wider audience while generating revenue that supports conservation.