Which Nepalese national park is a UNESCO site home to tigers and rhinos?

Chitwan National Park is the Nepalese UNESCO site known for Bengal tigers and greater one-horned rhinoceroses. It lies in the Terai lowlands of south-central Nepal, where riverine forests, grasslands, and alluvial floodplains create rich wildlife habitat.

Established in 1973 as Nepal’s first national park, Chitwan was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Before protection, the region was a royal hunting ground, and intensive hunting, settlement, and poaching sharply reduced its wildlife. Conservation patrols and habitat protection helped its rhinoceros population recover.

The park is especially associated with the greater one-horned rhinoceros, sometimes called the Indian rhinoceros, and the Bengal tiger. It also shelters gharials, sloth bears, wild elephants, leopards, deer, and hundreds of bird species. A common mix-up is confusing Chitwan with Sagarmatha, Nepal’s other famous UNESCO national park, which is celebrated for Mount Everest and Himalayan landscapes rather than Terai wildlife.