A pride of lions lie relaxed together in a cool culvert under a road in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), in the southern Serengeti plains ecosystem, Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region, Tanzania, East Africa. The Maasai people named Ngorongoro Crater after the cowbell sound, "ngoro ngoro." The park hosts the Great Migration — the world's most massive land animal migration (in terms of total body weight). This annual circuit of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, etc. continues from the NCA clockwise through Serengeti National Park to the northwest plus Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve. 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. UNESCO honors the NCA as a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve.
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