Kaieteur National Park

Kaieteur National Park
Kaieteur Falls in the Kaieteur National Park
LocationPotaro-Siparuni Region of Guyana
Coordinates5°13′N 59°25′W / 5.217°N 59.417°W / 5.217; -59.417
Area242 sq mi (630 km2)
Established1929
Governing bodyProtected Areas Trust
Golden rocket frog, Kaieteur National Park.

Kaieteur National Park is a national park located in the Potaro-Siparuni Region of Guyana, roughly 633 km (393.33 miles) south of Georgetown, the nation's capital, closer to the border with Brazil than to the Caribbean coast. It is widely considered the country's only national park,[1][2] as the capital's National Park is a not a true wilderness reserve. Kaieteur is part of the Guianan moist forests ecoregion.[3] The main tourist attraction in the park is Kaieteur Falls, considered the largest single-drop waterfall anywhere on earth, by volume of water.[4] Orinduik Falls is another water-feature in the park, a series of smaller, cascading waterfalls. There is a popular swimming hole located at Orinduik.[4]

The Kaieteur National Park Act was enacted by the government to protect the region's wealth of natural resources, its unique natural features (such as the aforementioned Kaieteur Falls), its biodiversity of Amazonian flora and fauna, and for the several Amerindian tribes whom have lived and thrived in this forest for millennia.[4] The Act is administered by the Kaieteur National Park Commission. There are organisms unique to this region that cannot be found anywhere else on earth, such as the golden rocket frog (Anomaloglossus beebei), a diminutive frog that only breeds within the leaves of the bromeliad species Brocchinia micrantha (within the park), and nowhere else in the world.

The region is served by Kaieteur International Airport, which is situated at Kaieteur Falls.

  1. ^ BBC Wildlife Magazine. Vol. 26. BBC. 2008. p. 86. It is also Guyana's only national park
  2. ^ Global Biodiversity. Vol. 3–4. The Museum. 1993. pp. 10–11. Kaieteur National Park remains the only national park and the only legally protected biological area in Guyana.
  3. ^ Schipper, Jan; Teunissen, Pieter; Lim, Burton, Northern South America: Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, northern Brazil, and eastern Venezuela (NT0125), retrieved 2017-04-03
  4. ^ a b c "Kaieteur National Park". national-parks.org. Retrieved 2023-12-24.