Kundelungu National Park is one of the great secrets of southern Congo: a vast expanse of plateaus and highland savannah, remote and little visited, in the heart of mining Katanga. Far from the equatorial rainforest that dominates the rest of the country, the landscape here is open highland, with grasslands, rocky outcrops and gallery forest along the rivers, with a feel closer to the savannahs of southern Africa.
Its undisputed gem is the Lofoi Falls: a spectacular drop where the Lofoi River plunges some 340 metres over the edge of the plateau in a single free fall, considered one of the highest in Africa. Watching it fall into the valley, surrounded by savannah and without a single building in sight, is an experience of pure nature. The park also holds savannah wildlife and the atmosphere of a wild frontier.
This guide covers Kundelungu from a practical angle: how to get there from Lubumbashi, when to see the Lofoi Falls at their best, what to expect from the park and its wildlife, and how to organise a visit to an expedition destination with no tourist infrastructure. For adventurous travellers who want to see a different side of the Congo (that of the southern plateaus), Kundelungu is a rarely trodden reward.
Kundelungu National Park was created in 1970, under the Mobutu regime, to protect the plateaus and highland savannahs of south-eastern Katanga and their unique landscapes, including the Lofoi Falls. Like many Congolese parks, it suffered decades of neglect, poaching and pressure, and its wildlife was badly depleted. In recent years, management in partnership with the NGO African Parks and the ICCN has sought to restore the park, strengthen protection and develop a fledgling tourism sector. Its full history is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The south of copper and cobalt: Katanga, the richest province in the country, source of the Manhattan Project's uranium and home to the city of Lubumbashi, with remote parks and the towering Lofoi Falls.
Read the history of The mining south (Katanga) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Kundelungu National Park protects a landscape that stands out in the Congolese context: the high plateaus of south-eastern Katanga, a world of savannahs, grasslands and rocky outcrops very different from the equatorial rainforest that covers most of the DR Congo. These highlands, more than a thousand metres above sea level, are part of the great arc of savannahs across southern Africa. They have a climate of two distinct seasons, with cool, dry southern winters and humid, stormy summers.
The plateau terrain, cut through by valleys and escarpments, gives rise to one of the park's most spectacular features: the waterfalls that plunge over the edges of the plateaus, among them the famous Lofoi Falls. The rivers that rise in the highlands feed gallery forests and sustain life on the savannah. It is a landscape of wide horizons, intense light and great beauty, especially in the dry season.
Long before it became a park, this land was home to peoples of southern Congo who lived by herding, farming and hunting, in a region shaped by Katanga's long tradition of copper working. The savannah and its resources were part of daily life for local communities, in a borderland between the cultures of the forest and those of the southern savannahs.
Kundelungu National Park was created in 1970, under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, as part of a push to establish protected areas in what was then Zaire. It was set up to protect the high plateaus and savannahs of south-eastern Katanga, their unusual landscapes and their wildlife, and above all the surroundings of the Lofoi Falls, one of the region's great natural attractions. The park covers thousands of square kilometres of plateaus and valleys.
The Lofoi Falls are the emblem of Kundelungu: the Lofoi River drops over the edge of the plateau in a single free-falling plunge of about 340 metres, which makes them one of the highest waterfalls in Africa. For a long time they were even described as the highest waterfall in Africa, although measurements and comparisons with other falls on the continent have since qualified that claim. Either way, their height and wild setting make them extraordinary.
In its early decades, the park was home to a fairly rich savannah fauna, with antelopes, zebras and other grazing animals, and it was part of a network of protected areas in Katanga together with neighbouring Upemba National Park. However, the instability and decline the country went through from the final years of the Mobutu regime onwards would hit these areas hard.
Like many of the DR Congo's national parks, Kundelungu went through difficult decades. The economic collapse of Mobutu's Zaire, weak institutions and, above all, the wars and instability of the late 20th and early 21st centuries left Katanga's parks with very few resources to protect themselves. Patrols became weaker, and poaching, both for meat and for trade, badly depleted the savannah wildlife that once lived on the plateaus.
Katanga is also a region dominated by copper and cobalt mining, which puts heavy pressure on land and resources. Although Kundelungu lies some distance from the main mining areas, the general context of poverty, population movements and the informal economy added to the pressure on the park. For years, Kundelungu was a protected area almost only on paper: its natural landscapes held on, but its large wildlife was greatly reduced.
This decline was shared by many Congolese parks and reflects the huge challenge of conserving nature in a country affected by conflict, poverty and instability. The Lofoi Falls and the plateau landscapes were still there, as impressive as ever, but the park needed a determined push to bring back its wildlife and to work as a protected area again.
In recent years, Kundelungu has entered a new phase under the NGO African Parks, which manages protected areas across Africa in partnership with governments. Working with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN), it has launched efforts to restore the park. These include stepping up patrols and anti-poaching work, supporting the surrounding communities, restoring wildlife and slowly building up a young tourism sector to help fund conservation.
The long-term goal is to give Kundelungu back some of its former wildlife, possibly by reintroducing species, and to turn the Lofoi Falls and the plateau landscapes into an attraction that brings income and jobs to the region. It is a long, difficult process in a complicated setting, but it offers hope for one of the most unusual and least-known parks in southern Congo.
For travellers, Kundelungu today is an expedition destination: remote, with almost no infrastructure, but of outstanding natural beauty. The Lofoi Falls, plunging 340 metres over the edge of the plateau into the empty savannah, are one of Africa's great natural wonders that few people get to see. Once a forgotten park and now a protected area on the road to recovery, Kundelungu shows both the challenge and the promise of conservation in the mining heartland of the Congo.
