Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is in Kajiado County, Kenya. The park is 39,206 hectares (392 km2; 151 sq mi)[1] in size at the core of an 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area (average 350 mm (14 in)) one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species.[2]
The park protects two of the five main swamps, and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semiarid vegetation.
About 240 km (150 mi) southeast from the capital city Nairobi, Amboseli National Park is the second-most popular national park in Kenya after Maasai Mara National Reserve.