Virunga National Park

Africa's oldest national park stretches from lava plains and savannah to the glaciated summits of the Rwenzori above 5,000 metres, packing an almost implausible range of habitats into 790,000 hectares. Virunga shelters mountain gorillas on its volcanic slopes, roughly 20,000 hippos along its rivers, and migratory birds that arrive from as far away as Siberia. UNESCO granted the park World Heritage status in 1979.