- Where
- Ogooué-Maritime and Nyanga provinces
Atlantic coast of Gabon - Coordinates
- 2.167° S
9.567° E - Created
- 2002
(one of thirteen national parks) - Area
- About 1,550 km² (Wikipedia)
155,000 ha (Gabon’s UNESCO submission) - From Libreville
- About 300 km south
(Gabon’s UNESCO submission) - Run by
- ANPN, Gabon’s national
parks agency - Advisory
- Gabon Level 2
Surf on one side, a wall of dark forest on the other, and the sand between them printed with tracks far too big for me. An elephant walked out of the trees, along the waterline and back in again without a glance. Out in the breakers a round grey back came up: a hippo, sitting in the sea. It looked at me. I looked back. Neither of us explained.
The short answer
Loango National Park is a coastal park in western Gabon, in the provinces of Ogooué-Maritime and Nyanga, which Gabon’s submission to UNESCO’s Tentative List places about 300 km south of the capital, Libreville. Wikipedia gives its area as 1,550 km² of savanna, beach, forest and mangrove; the submission gives 155,000 hectares, which is the same figure in other units. It lies between the Nkomi and Ndogo lagoons and takes in part of the Iguéla lagoon, which Wikipedia describes as the only significant example of a typical West African lagoon system protected within a national park. It was created in 2002 and is run by Gabon’s national parks agency, the Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN). Its reputation rests on one sight: animals of the forest and the lagoons, elephants, buffalo and hippos among them, out on an Atlantic beach.
Why it's worth knowing
Loango is a coast where the land’s animals use the beach. Wikipedia lists elephants, buffalo, hippopotamuses, gorillas and leopards among the animals that venture onto the sand, and Gabon’s UNESCO submission, made in January 2022, describes hippos bathing in the Atlantic waves and buffalo and elephants sunning themselves on the beaches. The sea brings its own visitors. Humpback whales and dolphins can be watched from the shore between June and September, the submission says, and the beaches are a nesting ground for leatherback turtles: it calls them the world’s second nesting site for the species, with an average of 30,000 nests a year.
The park is one of thirteen that a very long walk helped to bring about. In 1999 the ecologist J. Michael Fay set off on foot from the Republic of the Congo and, by the National Geographic Society’s account, came out on the coast of Gabon 456 days and about 2,000 miles later, surveying the forest as he went. The photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols documented the walk, which became known as the Megatransect, for National Geographic. The Society credits the project with drawing attention to the forests it crossed; in 2002, it says, Gabon’s president, Omar Bongo Ondimba, established thirteen national parks covering 11 per cent of the country. Gabon’s national biodiversity clearing house records the announcement at the Johannesburg Earth Summit on 4 September 2002. Loango was one of them.
Fay called Loango “Africa’s Last Eden”, and it was here, Wikipedia records, that Nichols took his pictures of hippos in the surf. Those pictures are the reason most people outside Gabon have heard of the place. They are also a fair warning about the odds: a hippo in the sea is a chance encounter, not a fixture, and Africa’s Eden, which runs a lodge on the Iguéla lagoon, describes its walks as leading to small lagoons where hippos live.
The field notes
The lagoon
Gabon’s UNESCO submission describes a flat-bottomed valley, 5 to 15 km wide, filled by the Ngowé river and the Iguéla lagoon, which runs for 40 km and is 3 to 15 km across: more than 200 km² of open water, from 0.85 metres to 20 metres deep. Wikipedia gives the lagoon as 220 km². Very few villages lie inside the park, Wikipedia says; most are on the far bank of the Ngowé lagoon. Boats are the ordinary way of getting about.
Gorillas, slowly
In 2005 the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology began a project in Loango to habituate western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees, for research and for tourism, in collaboration with Gabon’s park authorities, according to the German gorilla charity Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe. Habituation means repeated, neutral contact until the animals lose their fear of people, and it takes years. The charity describes false starts, then a group, the Atananga group, followed from 2009; since the beginning of 2016, it says, Loango has been one of only a few places where visitors can see habituated wild western lowland gorillas. Visits are booked through tour operators and the park.
Turtles in the dark
Four species of sea turtle, the green, olive ridley, hawksbill and leatherback, nest along Gabon’s 900 km of coast from October to April, according to an AFP report carried by phys.org in March 2026. A survey across three nesting seasons between 2002 and 2007, reported by the Wildlife Conservation Society in 2009, estimated between 15,730 and 41,373 female leatherbacks using Gabon’s beaches, which it called the world’s largest nesting population. WCS Gabon names Loango as one of the two landscapes where it concentrates its fieldwork, with Mayumba to the south.
A forest buffalo standing in the Atlantic surf on a Loango beach.
Photograph: Lucy Keith-Diagne · CC BY 4.0
A forest elephant and her calf leaving the savanna for the trees.
Photograph: Kurt Dundy · Gabon Loango National Park Elephant with offspring · CC BY 3.0 · cropped
A habituated silverback and one of his young in the Loango forest. Visits are booked through operators and the park.
Photograph: TheLeftCoast · CC0 · cropped
A rosy bee-eater in Loango National Park, August 2024.
Photograph: Francesco Veronesi · Rosy Bee-eater - Loango NP - Gabon 5P5A2372 · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Walk the beach slowly along the edge of the trees, and give every large animal far more room than it asks for.
- Go to the gorillas in a small group behind the trackers, keep your voice down, and leave the moment you are told.
- Take the boat up the lagoon in the first grey hour, while the hippos are still deciding where to be.
- Go out onto the sand after dark only with a guide, keep the torch off, and let the turtles have the beach.
- Leave a line on the list that says only: hippo, in the sea, surely not. Mine has a row of question marks after it, and I am keeping every one.
A leatherback’s nest. A patch of sand above the high-tide line on one of Loango’s beaches, where a leatherback turtle hauled herself out of the Atlantic in the dark, dug a pit with her back flippers, laid her eggs in it and swept the sand back over them before returning to the sea. By morning it is a smoothed, slightly scuffed patch that a walker could step across without a thought. Weeks later, if it survives, the hatchlings dig their own way out and make for the surf.
Tally, in the marginThe tidiest patch of sand on the whole beach, and I very nearly sat down on it. It took the guide's hand on my arm to tell me that somebody had spent the night making it look like nothing.
Getting there
How to get there. Fly to Libreville. Wikivoyage describes two ways on: a light aircraft from Libreville or Port-Gentil to Iguéla, close to the park, or a boat from Omboué up the Mpivié river; boat transfers between Port-Gentil and Omboué take three to four and a half hours. In practice a visit is arranged through a specialist tour operator, who handles the flights, boats and camps.
When to go. For whales, June to September by Gabon’s UNESCO submission (Africa’s Eden gives mid-July to mid-September). For nesting turtles, October to April. Steppes Travel, a specialist operator, calls July a prime month for seeing wildlife in the park.
What to book ahead. Everything, through one operator: the transfers, a bed, and a gorilla visit if you want one. Africa’s Eden, which runs Loango Lodge on the Iguéla lagoon and camps inside the park, says its accommodation is not operating at present and is planned to reopen in the fourth quarter of 2026. Other operators run small-group trips using camps in the park. Check what is open before you commit to dates.
Safety. The State Department has Gabon at Level 2, exercise increased caution, for unrest, crime and health (advisory dated 30 March 2026). It names Libreville and Port-Gentil, the usual gateways, for protests and for crime including robbery and vehicle break-ins, and warns that medical care is limited, especially outside the large cities. Loango is remote; arrange medical evacuation cover before you go. On foot, give elephants, buffalo and hippos a very wide berth.
Mark this place
Common questions
Why are there hippos on the beach at Loango?
Loango National Park in Gabon runs from rainforest and lagoons straight down to the Atlantic, and its animals use the beach. Gabon’s UNESCO submission describes hippos bathing in the Atlantic waves, and the National Geographic photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols took his well-known pictures of hippos in the surf there. A hippo in the sea is a chance sighting, not a fixture.
Where is Loango National Park?
Loango National Park is on the Atlantic coast of western Gabon, in the provinces of Ogooué-Maritime and Nyanga, about 300 km south of Libreville according to Gabon’s UNESCO submission. It lies between the Nkomi and Ndogo lagoons and takes in part of the Iguéla lagoon.
When was Loango National Park created?
Loango National Park was created in 2002, one of thirteen national parks that Gabon’s president, Omar Bongo Ondimba, announced at the Johannesburg Earth Summit on 4 September 2002. The National Geographic Society credits J. Michael Fay’s Megatransect, a walk across Congo and Gabon begun in 1999, with drawing attention to the forests the parks protect.
Who called Loango Africa's Last Eden?
The ecologist J. Michael Fay, who walked across the Republic of the Congo and Gabon on the Megatransect survey from 1999, called Loango National Park “Africa’s Last Eden”, according to Wikipedia. The photographer Michael Nichols, who documented the walk for National Geographic, photographed Loango’s hippos in the surf.
Can you see gorillas in Loango National Park?
Yes, by booking ahead. The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology began habituating western lowland gorillas in Loango National Park, Gabon, in 2005, for research and tourism, with the park authorities. Since 2016, according to the charity Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe, visitors have been able to see a habituated wild group there.
Do sea turtles nest at Loango?
Yes. Leatherback turtles nest on the beaches of Loango National Park in Gabon; Gabon’s UNESCO submission calls them the world’s second nesting site for the species, with an average of 30,000 nests a year. Four turtle species nest along Gabon’s coast from October to April.
When can you see whales at Loango?
Humpback whales and dolphins can be watched from the beaches of Loango National Park, Gabon, between June and September, according to Gabon’s UNESCO submission; Africa’s Eden, which runs a lodge on the Iguéla lagoon, gives mid-July to mid-September.
Is Gabon safe to visit?
The U.S. State Department has Gabon at Level 2, exercise increased caution, for unrest, crime and health (advisory dated 30 March 2026). It names Libreville and Port-Gentil for protests and crime, and warns that medical care is limited outside the large cities. Loango National Park is remote, so visitors should arrange evacuation cover.