Katavi National Park was established in 1974 and is one of the most remote, vast natural and pristine parks in Africa. The park is also rich in plant and wildlife nature resources. The vegetation is a mosaic of closed to open woodlands, scrublands, grasslands, swamps, seasonal lakes and riverine vegetation. The main focus for game viewing within the park is the Katuma River and assocciated floodplains such as the seasonal Lakes Katavi and Chada where most animals congregate.

Hippos in Katavi provides the most singular wildlife spectacle, towards the end of the dry seaso, up to 200 hundred individuals might flop together in any riverine pool of sufficient depth. The park offers wildlife in abundance and it has one of Tanzania's greatest concentrations of buffalo, elephants and hippotamus.