About the park
About Kruger National Park: size, regions and who runs it
South Africa's first national park, proclaimed in 1926 out of the Sabi Game Reserve of 1898, and one of the largest in Africa: 19,485 km² of lowveld between the Crocodile River and the Limpopo, run by SANParks.
If you only want the answer
Kruger National Park covers 19,485 km² of north-eastern South Africa, along the Mozambique border from the Crocodile River to the Limpopo. It began as the Sabi Game Reserve in 1898 and became the country's first national park on 31 May 1926. SANParks runs it, and in May 2026 signed a benefit-sharing agreement with the communities whose land claims cover the park.
How big is Kruger National Park?
SANParks' centenary site gives 19,485 km², and its park page says 'nearly 2 million hectares'. The statutory management plan for 2018 to 2028 counts 1,919,430 ha (19,194 km²), the area the 2023 aerial wildlife survey covered, and the World Database on Protected Areas lists 19,169 km². The plan's own figure mixes declared and managed land with a small area declared but not managed and undeclared parcels from land swaps and the old railway line; any of these totals puts Kruger among the largest parks in Africa.
The park runs along South Africa's border with Mozambique to the east and reaches Zimbabwe at the Limpopo in the north. Its highest point is Khandizwe hill, 839 m above sea level, in the south-west near Malelane and Berg-en-Dal. Rain falls from about 750 mm a year in the south-west to 350 mm in the north-east, concentrated between October and April, and that gradient shapes everything from the vegetation to where the game is.
The regions you will drive through
SANParks splits the park into three regions for trip planning, and the gate you choose decides which one you see first.
| Region | Gates | Main camps | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| South | Malelane, Crocodile Bridge, Numbi, Phabeni, Paul Kruger | Berg-en-Dal, Crocodile Bridge, Lower Sabie, Pretoriuskop, Skukuza | The wettest part, closest to Johannesburg and the airports, with the busiest roads along the Sabie and Crocodile rivers |
| Central | Orpen, Phalaborwa | Orpen, Satara, Olifants | Open basalt plains east of the H1 road, with Satara at their heart |
| North | Phalaborwa, Punda Maria, Pafuri | Letaba, Mopani, Shingwedzi, Punda Maria | Drier mopane country, furthest from the cities, with the Luvuvhu river forest and Crooks Corner in the far north |
Kruger has 12 main rest camps, 4 satellite camps, 5 bushveld camps and 3 bush lodges run by SANParks, plus private concession lodges on land leased from SANParks inside the boundary.
From game reserve to national park
The Transvaal government proclaimed a game reserve between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers in 1898; it lapsed in the Anglo-Boer War and was re-proclaimed as the Sabie Game Reserve in 1902. The Shingwedzi Game Reserve between the Letaba and Limpopo followed in 1903, the two were consolidated in 1916, and on 31 May 1926 the National Parks Act made them Kruger National Park, gazetted on 2 September 1926. The first three tourist cars came in 1927, and the first rest huts went up at Satara, Pretoriuskop and Skukuza in 1928.
The park was not empty land. SANParks records more than 255 archaeological sites, and families were removed to make room for it, from Pretoriuskop in the 1930s to the Makuleke at Pafuri in 1969. In 1998 the Makuleke won back the Pafuri Triangle under a contract that keeps it in the park for conservation, and it is now run as a concession.
Who runs Kruger, and what changed in 2026
Kruger is managed by South African National Parks (SANParks), a public entity under the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, under the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act 57 of 2003. SANParks generates close to 80% of its operating budget itself, which is why the environment minister called the revenue lost to the January 2026 floods a risk to the entire network of parks.
The governance fact that matters now is the land settlement. On 29 May 2026 SANParks, the environment department and the communities with land claims against the park signed a Beneficiation Scheme Framework Agreement at Skukuza: the communities receive shareholding, concessions, a percentage of net revenue, bursaries and naming and access rights, while living inside the park remains prohibited. Negotiations had formally begun in 2012.
Part of something larger
Kruger is the core of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, 37,572 km² shared with Mozambique's Limpopo National Park and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou, and fences with Limpopo National Park have been taken down. To the west, the private reserves of the Greater Kruger, the Sabi Sand, Timbavati, Klaserie and others, have been unfenced from the park since 1993, so animals cross freely between them while the visitor rules differ on each side.
Kruger is not a UNESCO World Heritage Site, whatever some pages say. It lies within two UNESCO biosphere reserves, Kruger to Canyons and Vhembe.