Sunrise over Lake Magadi in Ngorongoro Crater, in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), Arusha Region, Tanzania, East Africa. UNESCO honors the NCA as a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve. Ngorongoro Crater is an inactive volcano which formerly rose up to 19,000 feet above sea level until collapsing 2 million years ago. Its crater is 2,000 feet deep with a caldera floor at 5,900 feet elevation, covering 100 square miles. The Maasai people named Ngorongoro Crater after the cowbell sound, "ngoro ngoro." The Serengeti Plains and Ecosystem span the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania. Based on fossil evidence found at the Olduvai Gorge, various hominid species have occupied the NCA for 3 million years. Pastoral tribes replaced hunter-gatherer groups from 2,000 years ago through the 1700s. By the 1800s, the earlier groups were displaced by the Maasai — fearsome warriors and cattle rustlers from what is now South Sudan. In 1928, hunting was prohibited on all land within the crater rim, except the former Siedentopf farms. From 1948–2024, the native pastoralists have been increasingly disenfranchised and forcibly displaced by park authorities.
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