Kanha National Park

Kanha National Park is one of the biggest park in Madhya Pradesh, India.'Kanha National Park' is a national park and a Tiger Reserve in the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, India. In the 1930s, Kanha area was divided into two sanctuaries, Hallon and Banjar, of 250 and 300 km² . Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955. Today it stretches over an area of 940 km² in the two districts Mandla and Balaghat. Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km² and the neighboring 110 km² Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. This makes it the largest National Park in Central India.

The park has a significant population of Royal Bengal Tiger, leopards, the sloth bear, Barasingha and Indian wild dog. The lush sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows and ravines of Kanha provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous novel "Jungle Book "

Kanha National Park is home to over 1000 species of flowering plants. The lowland forest issal  and other mixed forest trees, interspersed with meadows. The highland forests are tropical moist dry deciduous type and of a completely different nature with bamboo on slopes . A very good looking Indian ghost tree can also be seen in the dense forest.

 Leopards, wild dogs, wild cats, foxes and jackals are the main animals found here.

Among the deer species Swamp Deer or Hard Ground Barasingha is pride of the place as it is the only sub species of swamp deer in India (Cervus duavcelli branderi). The animal is adapted to hard ground unlike swamp deer of the North which live in marshy swamps. Kanha National Park has been instrumental in rescuing the “Swamp Deer” from extinction. Indian Gaur (Bos guarus), belonging to the ox genus, is found in Kanha but seen mostly as winter ends. In summer gaur inhabit meadows and water holes in the park.

Best Time to Visit :-

Every year Kanha National Park is open for visitors from the 15th of October to till 30th of June. As per the climate of Central part of India, the peak season for Kanha National Park is during winters, say October to March. Most of the tourists visit the park between November and March, mainly because the summer's heat is unbearable. The period between November and February is excellent for visiting Kanha national park as the rain fall during monsoon rejuvenated all the nature & vegetation. Particularly this period is best for bird watching. A lot of migratory birds visit the park during the winter months. During the time period from March to May most of the vegetation at Kanha National Park gets dried & Tiger Sighting is relatively easier than it is in winters. The month of March is the best month for wildlife viewing and the temperature is not very high however Months of April & May provide a great & almost sure opportunity to Wildlife Photographers specially who are looking for some rare photographs of the largest member of cat family.