Sunderbans National Park

Sunderbans - The World Heritage Site

The holy Ganga journeys down the Himalayas and flows along India’s vast monotonous plains into the state of West Bengal. Towards the southern tip of the state, the land and the Bay of Bengal break out into a lively welcoming fandango to form a fresco of tangled mangrove swamps – the Sunderbans. The Sunderbans National Park are spread out over an area of 16,500sq km in the prostrate delta towards the mouth of the Ganga, and form the world’s largest estuarine forests that constitute 80% of India’s total mangrove swamps. A World Heritage Site, the Sunderbans are also amongst the richest biosphere reserves in the subcontinent.

The silt deposit islands on the Sunderbans Delta are connected to the mainland through a labyrinthine waterway system, with some islands being practically impenetrable. This has turned out to be a boon in disguise because the ecology of the area and these fecund marshlands, wired in thick foliage, are able to support an astonishing variety of plant and animal life. Twenty-six of the fifty broad mangrove types found in the world, thrive in the Sunderbans.


¤ A Home To Largest Tiger Population

In order to preserve this clearly unique biosphere, the area between River Hooghly and the River Teulia was declared a National Park in the year 1984. The protected reserve covers a stretch of 1,330sq km, and also constitutes the core zone of the National Park.

Compared to other reserves in the world, Sunderbans National Park has the largest population of tigers, and also abounds in salt water crocodiles, olive Ridley turtles, Gangetic dolphins, chitals (spotted deer), fishing cats, wild boars, otters, rhesus macaques, monitor lizards, snakes, innumerable fishes, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, worms and a host of birds including kingfishers, storks, herons, Brahmin ducks, arghilahs, ibises, water fowl and egrets, to name only a few.