Virunga — Landseed

Map key

Virunga National Park

Adjacent rift parks

Wildlife rangestap a species ↗

Mountain gorillas

Hippos & waterbirds

Elephants & lions

Okapi & forest elephants

Eastern chimpanzees

Albertine Rift birds

Main roads (RN routes)

Ranger station / HQ

Ecosystems by elevation · 680–5,109 m

Glacier & bare rock4,200 m +

Afro-alpine moorland3,500–4,200

Bamboo & subalpine2,900–3,500

Montane forest2,300–2,900

Savanna & bushland1,800–2,300

Foothill & woodland1,200–1,800

Lowland rainforest680–1,200

Parc National des Virunga

A long, narrow envelope around 7,835 km². Its boundary runs about 1,050 km — more than three times the 313 km a compact park of equal area would need. That exposure is the central problem of managing it: almost no forest here sits far from a cultivated edge.

Area

7,845 km²

Perimeter

~1,050 km measured

Compactness

0.09 Polsby–Popper

Established

1925

Elevation

680 – 5,109 m

IUCN

Category II

UNESCO World Heritage — inscribed 1979 (criteria vii, viii, x)

In Danger — on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 1994

WDPA ID 2017 — Protected Planet registry

A circle of equal area would have a 313 km perimeter — Virunga's edge is more than three times that, the geometry behind its exposure.

Boundary: OpenStreetMap rel. 404784. Measured area 7,845 km² matches the gazetted ~7,800 km² (WDPA 2017), validating it. Perimeter measured at ~500 m generalisation (scale-dependent). UNESCO WHC #63.