Yala National Park is the 2nd largest national park in Sri Lanka.It is situated in the southeast region of the island in the dry zone. The park is situated about 300 km from Colombo which is capital city of Sri Lanka. Yala park belongs to two provinces in Sri Lanka namely Uva Province and Southern Province. The park divided into five blocks and only I and II blocks are opened for the visitors. The reserve covers 979 km², although only the original 141 km² are open to the public. It was established in 1894 as a Game Sanctuary.
Much of the reserve is parkland, but it also contains jungle, beaches, freshwater lakes and rivers and scrubland. The latter zone is punctuated with enormous rocky outcrops. The range of habitats give rise to a good range of wildlife.
Yala has the world's highest concentration of Leopards, although seeing this largely nocturnal carnivore still requires some luck.
of large-scale animal deaths from the tsunami was found indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground.

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