Katavi National Park is universally recognized as one of the few truly remote and untouched areas of Tanzania’s immense conservation areas. This is primarily due to its position in the far south west of the country and the associated cost and time involved in reaching the park.

Katavi is predominantly made up of high plains grassland, which becomes swampy wetland during the rains, interspersed with fringes of miombo woodland and scattered acacia. Covering an area of more than one million hectares, Katavi is the third largest National Park; it has two lakes, Lake Katavi in the north and Lake Chada in the south, fed by the Kutuma river. These lakes are cracked, open plains during the dry season from June to November, and only fill up during the rains. Kutuma River shrinks to a narrow stream, with pools which become the extremely cramped quarters of hundreds of hippos and crocodiles. In fact, Katavi has the highest density of hippos and the largest crocodiles in all of Tanzania.

The remoteness - and vastness - of the ecosystem has meant that the lush floodplains attract a very large biomass and huge herds of wildlife; it is not uncommon to see herds of 1600 buffalo at a time. Along with large herds of topi and zebra the buffalo graze the plains during the day when they are less vulnerable to predators, preferring to return to the relative safety of the woodland at night. Their predators maintain the balance by ambushing them as they return to the woodland.

The park is also home to over 400 bird species and many of the rarer antelope such as sable and roan.