Chitwan National Parkचितवन राष्ट्रिय निकुञ्ज

Chitwan is where Nepal's modern conservation story begins. Set in the Inner Terai lowlands where the Churia (Siwalik) hills meet the floodplains of the Rapti, Narayani and Reu rivers, it was gazetted in 1973 as the country's first national park — and in 1984 became a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its natural value. The park proper covers about 952.63 km² (originally gazetted at roughly 932 km²), wrapped by a 766.1 km² buffer zone added in 1996 where park revenue is shared with local communities.

The park is Nepal's flagship for the greater one-horned rhinoceros, whose Chitwan population crashed to roughly 95 animals by 1970 before recovering to 694 by the 2021 national count. It also holds the country's largest tiger population (128 in 2022) and a roll-call of Terai megafauna — gaur, wild elephant, sloth bear, leopard, gharial and mugger crocodile — among some 68 mammal species and 543 recorded birds. The grasslands, riverine forest and sal woodland make it the richest single wildlife landscape in the country.

It is also Nepal's premier wildlife-tourism destination. Jeep and canoe safaris run out of Sauraha on the park's northern edge, and the buffer-zone model pioneered here — returning a share of park income to the people who live beside it — is now a global reference for community-linked protected-area finance. The same ground that was guarded by the army under strict fortress conservation in the 1970s is today co-managed with the user committees of its buffer villages.