Salonga National Park is situated in the heart of the central basin of the Congo River and is only accessible by water. The Park was established in 1956, as Tshupa National Park and its boundaries were designated in 1970. It covers 36,000 square kilometers of area and is the largest tropical rainforest reserve in Africa. The area of the park includes the provinces of the Bandundu, Equateur, Kasai Oriental and Kasai Occidental. UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage Site in 1984. In 1999, it was listed under the List of World Heritage Site in Danger due to the civil war in the eastern half of the country.
The park structure is completely based on the model of the American National Park. The fauna of the park comprises of Dryas monkeys, bonobos, Thollon’s red colobus, Congo Peacock, leopards, African slender-snouted crocodiles and forest elephants. Many birds are also spotted in the park such as yellow-billed stork, black stork and cattle egret. The southern part of the park consists of high population of bonobos near layelima settlements that do not harm the animals or use them as a source of earning by poaching.