The national parks
Twenty-three national parks and one conservation area, covering roughly 111,900 square kilometres — about an eighth of the country's land area in national parks alone. Add the game reserves and forest reserves and it is closer to a third. Most visitors see four of them.
23
National parks
22 mainland under TANAPA, plus Jozani in Zanzibar
1
Conservation area
Ngorongoro — run by the NCAA, not TANAPA
30,893
km², the largest
Nyerere, gazetted 2019
2.18
km², the smallest
Saanane Island, in Lake Victoria
A distinction worth making
Ngorongoro is not a national park. It is a conservation area, managed by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority rather than TANAPA, under a model that allows Maasai pastoralists to live and graze inside it. Its fees, permits and rules are separate — including the requirement that self-drivers take a ranger to descend into the crater. Everyone calls it a park. It is listed here because visitors look for it here, and labelled honestly because the difference is practical, not pedantic.
7 parks
5 parks
8 parks
Areas and establishment dates are as published by TANAPA and in the public record; each park page lists the sources its figures were checked against. Park entry and conservation fees are set by government and revised annually, so check the current rate with the park authority before you travel.