About the park

The history of Kruger National Park

Name: Kruger National Park
Address: South Africa

Kruger has two birthdays and a long prehistory. People have shaped this landscape for tens of thousands of years; a game reserve was proclaimed here in 1898, a national park in 1926, and in 2026 the country celebrated a centenary that SANParks itself had already marked in 1998. This is the documented story, removals and culling included.

If you only want the answer

The Transvaal government proclaimed the Sabi Game Reserve between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers in 1898, the Shingwedzi reserve followed in the north in 1903, and the National Parks Act of 31 May 1926 merged them into the Kruger National Park. First tourists came in 1927. The park was also built on removals: families evicted from Pretoriuskop in the 1930s and the Makuleke removed from Pafuri in 1969, who won their land back in 1998. Elephants were culled from 1967 to 1994, and a 2026 national strategy has put culling back on the table.

People in the Kruger landscape for 40,000 years

SANParks says humans have been interacting with the Kruger ecosystem for the last 40,000 years. San hunter-gatherers left rock paintings; Iron Age communities settled in the area as early as 200 AD; and from the 12th to the 18th century a trade in glass beads, ivory, skins and meat ran through it, until the Difaqane (Mfecane) conflicts displaced people. The park holds well over 255 recorded archaeological sites, from the Early Stone Age, roughly a million years ago, to historical buildings.

A 2023 study combining pollen and archaeological data showed 1,200 years of use by hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, farmers and traders shaping the landscape of northern Kruger and the neighbouring Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. The wilderness visitors see today is not untouched land; it is land that people used for a very long time before the park was drawn around it.

Thulamela and Masorini: stone walls and iron furnaces

Thulamela, on a hilltop in the far north near Pafuri, is a late Iron Age stone-walled capital of the Zimbabwe culture, the tradition SANParks traces from Mapungubwe to Great Zimbabwe. It is about 450 to 500 years old, oral histories link it to the Lembethu (a Nyai division of the Shona-speaking people), excavated graves date to about AD 1450 and AD 1600, and its people traded gold and ivory with the Indian Ocean coast.

Masorini, near Phalaborwa gate, is a BaPhalaborwa iron-smelting settlement of the 1800s, reconstructed with huts and furnaces. Together with the Albasini Ruins at Phabeni Gate they are the three heritage sites SANParks opens to the public.

Traders and wagon roads before the reserve

The written record starts with outsiders passing through. SANParks' heritage pages record that on 12 July 1725 a Dutch expedition looking for metals was ambushed near the Lebombo hills by the warriors of Chief Dawano. In 1844 the Delagoa wagon road crossed the area towards the coast, and by 1845 a Portuguese trader had set up a trading post at Magashula's Kraal, whose remains are the Albasini Ruins at Phabeni Gate, 10 km from Hazyview. SANParks also records that by 1900 there were no elephants left in the park area at all.

From the Sabi Game Reserve to Kruger National Park, 1898 to 1926

In 1898 the government of the South African Republic (the Transvaal) proclaimed a game reserve between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers. SANParks' statutory management plan records that the proclamation lapsed during the Anglo-Boer War and that the area was re-proclaimed as the Sabie Game Reserve in 1902. That year a Scottish army officer, Stevenson-Hamilton, became warden, a post he held until 1946; local people called him Skukuza, which SANParks translates as "he who sweeps clean", and the park's headquarters carries the name. The Shingwedzi Game Reserve, between the Letaba and Limpopo rivers, followed in May 1903.

Tourism came early into the argument. The Game Reserves Commission of 1916 to 1918, chaired by J.F. Ludorf, first raised it and recommended turning the reserves into a national park. In 1923 the railways' "round-in-nine" tours included a daylight stretch through the Sabie reserve, with tourists sleeping on the train at Sabie Bridge. On 31 May 1926 the National Parks Act merged the two reserves as the Kruger National Park; the government gazette notice followed on 2 September 1926. The first tourists were admitted in 1927, for £1 per vehicle, and the first rest huts went up in 1928 at Satara, Pretoriuskop and Skukuza.

Year	Event
1898	Sabi Game Reserve proclaimed by the Transvaal government
1902	Reserve re-proclaimed after the Anglo-Boer War; warden appointed (to 1946)
1903	Shingwedzi Game Reserve proclaimed in the north
1916 to 1918	Game Reserves Commission recommends a national park
1923	Railway tours run through the Sabie reserve
31 May 1926	National Parks Act creates Kruger National Park
1927	First tourists admitted
1928	First rest huts at Satara, Pretoriuskop and Skukuza
1931	Full-time gate official at Numbi Gate

Popular accounts give an exact day in March 1898 and a number for the 1926 Act; neither is given here because the original gazettes were not among the sources checked.

Which centenary: 1998 or 2026?

Both. SANParks' own centenary site argues that because the park began as the Sabi Game Reserve in 1898, the hundredth anniversary was celebrated with fanfare in 1998, and that a change of name does not change the date of establishment. The national government nevertheless held the official centenary of the national park on 31 May 2026 at Skukuza, under the theme "Our Heritage, Our Future".

The accurate short form is the one this site uses: founded as a game reserve in 1898, a national park since 1926.

Removals and land claims

The park was not drawn on empty land. SANParks itself records that the family of Chief Nyongane Mkhabela was forcefully evicted from Pretoriuskop in the 1930s, with the loss of their cattle; a memorial now stands there. In 1969 the Makuleke people were forcibly removed from the Pafuri area in the far north, and their land was incorporated into Kruger in a hectare-for-hectare swap that moved about 24,000 ha out of the park into the emerging homeland of Gazankulu.

In 1998, after negotiations that began in November 1996, the Makuleke regained ownership of the land between the Luvuvhu and Limpopo rivers, on condition that it is used only for conservation under a 50-year contractual park agreement with SANParks, renewable after 25 years, and managed by a joint board. The settlement became the national model; a 2013 academic review argues that the government later moved away from it. By 2018 fifteen land claims had been lodged against the park and six settled, and in 2008 Cabinet had decided that claimants would receive equitable redress rather than land inside the park.

On 29 May 2026 SANParks, the environment department and the claimant communities signed a Beneficiation Scheme Framework Agreement at Skukuza. It gives communities shareholding, concessions, a percentage of net revenue, bursaries and naming and access rights; living inside the park remains prohibited. Negotiations had formally begun in 2012, after claims lodged in the early 2000s.

Water, fences and culling: a century of management experiments

For most of the twentieth century Kruger was managed hands-on. SANParks' elephant management plan records that the first boreholes were drilled in 1933, rising to a peak of 306 in 1993; intensive closures started in 1998 and by 2008 only 114 were active. Fences along the western boundary went up from 1973 to 1977, cutting Kruger off from the land to the west.

Elephants were culled from 1967 to 1994, more than 14,000 of them by Africa Geographic's count, and SANParks placed a moratorium on culling in 1994. Its own plan concludes that culling held numbers stable, water provision raised survival and fences reduced movement. Then the direction reversed. In 1993 the fences between Kruger and the private reserves to the west came down, the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with Mozambique and Zimbabwe followed in 2002, and the fences with Limpopo National Park have since been removed.

On 29 February 2008 the government published National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants, in force from 1 May 2008, which require an approved management plan for every reserve. SANParks' signed Kruger elephant management plan for 2023 to 2028 was uploaded in February 2026.

Burn plots, rivers and counts: Kruger as a laboratory

In 1954 Kruger began its experimental burning programme, testing the season and frequency of fire across four landscapes; reviews in 2007 and 2012 describe it as one of the last remaining long-term landscape fire experiments in Africa. Fire policy today is a patch mosaic, with lightning fires allowed to burn.

The Kruger National Park Rivers Research Programme of the 1990s gave SANParks its strategic adaptive management and its "thresholds of potential concern", the limits that trigger a management response. Aerial game counts run every year, sample-based elephant surveys since 2013, and the photographic censuses of wild dog (since 1989/90) and cheetah ask visitors to contribute; the current cheetah census runs from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027.

The 2026 elephant strategy: culling back on the table

On 29 May 2026 the environment minister published the National Elephant Heritage Strategy for South Africa 2026 to 2036 (Government Gazette 54764, Notice 7545). It calls for a review of the 2008 Norms and Standards, lists implementing culling when flexible ecological limits are exceeded, on sound data, as an action for provincial authorities and reserve managers, and commits the department to publish annual culling reports, with the first in 2026. It names Kruger as holding most of the country's elephants.

It is the largest shift in elephant policy since the 1994 moratorium, and it is likely to be contested. It does not by itself mean that culling has resumed in Kruger; it sets out when it may.

Floods and governance in 2026

Kruger is run by South African National Parks (SANParks), a public entity under the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, under the Protected Areas Act 57 of 2003; the National Parks Board took the SANParks name in 1998. SANParks generates close to 80% of its own operating budget, which is why the January 2026 floods, which closed fifteen camps and led to a national disaster declaration and a Kruger Recovery Fund, were described as a risk to the whole network of parks.

The January 2026 flood response and the May 2026 elephant strategy were led by Minister W. Aucamp; a cabinet reshuffle announced on 17 June 2026 moved him to agriculture and named D. Maynier as environment minister, who led the flood-recovery handovers in September. SANParks' centenary site gives the park's area as 19,485 km², while its statutory management plan for 2018 to 2028 records 1,919,430 ha. These governance facts are as they stood on 6 October 2026 and may have moved since.

What you can see of this history today

Thulamela can be visited on a guided trail from Punda Maria or the Pafuri picnic site (R240 per person, ages 12 and over), Masorini sits 12 km from Phalaborwa gate on the Letaba road, and the Albasini Ruins are at Phabeni Gate. At Skukuza the Campbell 1929 Hut Museum preserves an early tourist hut, and SANParks lists the Founders' Statue among its heritage points. The Letaba Elephant Hall tells the elephant story, though Letaba camp is still under flood repair in 2026.

SANParks also lists Crooks Corner at the meeting of the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers, the Delagoa wagon road of 1844, the Gonde site on the park's militarised apartheid-era border, the Mkhabela memorial, the Historic Nyala Tree in the Makuleke area, the birth site of Jock of the Bushveld, and the rock art of Frances Koppie. The Kruger Shalati lodge now occupies a train on the old Selati railway bridge at Skukuza, a spot SANParks describes as marking where the first visits to the park were allowed in the early 1920s.