Rwenzori Mountains National Park
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
The Rwenzori Mountains rose about three million years ago as a block of crystalline rock was pushed upwards. The range, about 120 km long and 65 km wide, straddles the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its highest point, Margherita Peak, at 5,109 m, is the third highest in Africa. Though close to the equator, it carries glaciers and snow and feeds the Nile, and it is sometimes identified with the Mountains of the Moon that ancient writers named as the Nile's source.
In 1864 the English explorer Samuel Baker reported what he called Blue Mountains in the distance, and Henry M. Stanley visited in 1875 and 1888 and recorded the name Ruwenzori. In 1906 an Italian expedition led by the Duke of the Abruzzi climbed the main peaks. Photographs by its photographer, Vittorio Sella, show that the glaciers were already retreating.
The national park was gazetted in 1991 and inscribed in 1994. Giant heathers, groundsels and lobelias have earned its flora the name Africa's botanical big game. Rebel activity disrupted management, and the park was on the List of World Heritage in Danger from 1999 to 2004.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).