Sundarbans National Park
Topic: Biodiversity and its Conservation · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Forest and Wildlife Resources"
Meaning
Sundarbans National Park is a national park and tiger reserve in the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta in West Bengal. It is part of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees that grow along muddy coasts. India holds about 40% of the Sundarbans and Bangladesh holds the rest. The forest protects the coast from cyclones.
Example
The park was one of the first nine tiger reserves in 1973. It became a World Heritage Site in 1987 and a Ramsar site (a wetland of international importance) in 2019. Its tigers swim in salt water between the delta islands.
Don't confuse with
- Sunderban Biosphere Reserve (1989): this is a larger area under UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme, with core, buffer and transition zones. The national park sits inside it.
Related concepts
- National park
- Wildlife sanctuary
- Corbett National Park
- Kaziranga National Park
- Keoladeo National Park
- Great Himalayan National Park
- Sundarbans
- Natural World Heritage Sites of India