Wilpattu National Park

Why Visit

A larger, less-crowded alternative to Yala for leopard sightings, set around a distinctive landscape of forest-fringed lakes.

The island's largest national park, built around a landscape of natural sand-rimmed lakes, known for leopards and a quieter safari experience than Yala.

History

Wilpattu was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1905 and upgraded to national park status in 1938, the same year as Yala, making it one of Sri Lanka's oldest protected areas. Its name comes from the Sinhala for the willus, more than fifty natural, sand-rimmed lakes scattered through the park that are unusual in Sri Lanka and give the landscape its distinct character, quite different from the tank-and-scrub terrain of the southern parks. The rocky headland of Kudiramalai on the park's coastal edge is traditionally associated with Kuveni, a semi-legendary figure from the earliest Sinhalese chronicles said to have been the island's indigenous queen encountered by the legendary founding king Vijaya. The park was closed for roughly two decades from the 1980s due to the civil war, during which access was unsafe and wildlife populations went largely unmonitored, before reopening in 2003 and gradually rebuilding both its infrastructure and its reputation as one of the best places in the country to see leopards.