Matobo National Park
national park in Zimbabwe
The Matobo National Park forms the core of the Matobo or Matopos Hills, an area of granite kopjes and wooded valleys commencing some 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Bulawayo, southern Zimbabwe. The hills were formed over 2 billion years ago with granite being forced to the surface; it has eroded to produce smooth "whaleback dwalas" and broken kopjes, strewn with boulders and interspersed with thickets of vegetation. Matopo/Matob was named by the Lozwi. A different tradition states that the first King, Mzilikazi Khumalo when told by the local residents that the great granite domes were called madombo he replied, possible half jest, "We will call them matobo" - an Isindebele play on 'Bald heads'.
The Hills cover an area of about 3,100 km2 (1,200 sq mi), of which 424 km2 (164 sq mi) is National Park, the remainder being largely communal land and a small proportion of commercial farmland. The park extends along the Thuli, Mtshelele, Maleme and Mpopoma river valleys. Part of the national park is set aside as a 100 km2 (39 sq mi) game park, which has been stocked with game including the white rhinoceros. The highest point in the hills is the promontory named Gulati (1,549 m; 5,082 ft) just outside the north-eastern corner of the park.
Administratively, Matobo National Park incorporates the Lake Matopos Recreational Park, being the area around Hazelside, Sandy Spruit and Lake Matopos.
The national park is located within the southern Africa bushveld ecoregion.
The public source identifies “Matobo National Park” as national park in Zimbabwe. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Matobo, National and Park.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1778838. VIAF identifies the subject as 9085154260803224480003. Authority coordinates are -20.550, 28.508. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matobo National Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.