Diverse habitats, 44 mammal species, over 200 species of birds and a history retraced to 500 BC – Yala National Park is Sri Lanka’s most popular wildlife destination. Declared a Game Reserve in 1938, Yala comprises five blocks covering an area of 151,778 hectares. The park comprises several major habitat types – dunes, scrub forest, riverine forests, rocky out-crops, secondary forests and coastal lagoons with mangrove forests.

It is also known to contain the highest concentration of leopards in the world. The endangered leopard subspecies Panthera Pardus Kotiya, is found only in Sri Lanka.