Best Wildlife Sanctuaries & National Parks in India

Across Meghalaya's ravines, Khasi villagers train ficus aerial roots into footbridges over five centuries of patient weaving. The Nongriat double-decker is the famous one. Self-healing architecture found nowhere else in Asia.

One of northern India's largest national parks, and home to one of the country's best-known tiger populations.

India's oldest national park. Bengal tigers and Terai-belt wildlife are the draw.

Rainforest plateau on Kerala's Western Ghats. Expect spice estates, Apatani-style tribal hamlets, and 344 sq km of sanctuary holding leopards, elephants and Indian gaur. Edakkal's 6,000 BCE petroglyphs sit on the same ridge as the last refuge of the endangered Nilgiri tahr.

Two-thirds of the world's great one-horned rhinoceroses live inside this UNESCO World Heritage floodplain.

The world's largest mangrove delta. A UNESCO biosphere of 10,000 sq km shared with Bangladesh. Home to the last wild swimming tigers, saltwater crocodiles and over 250 bird species.

The only place on earth where Asiatic lions still roam wild in their natural habitat.

Earth's only floating lake. Phumdis — floating islands of vegetation — carpet the surface, shelter the endangered Sangai deer, and support the fishing communities who live on them.

The country's widest waterfall, a 300-metre horseshoe along the Indravati that tears through Bastar's sal forests. Locals call it the Niagara of India.