text: The Matobo Hills were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The area "exhibits a profusion of distinctive rock landforms rising above the granite shield that covers much of Zimbabwe".
  Features
  Flora
  The Matobo Hills is an area of high botanic diversity, with over 200 species of tree recorded in the national park, including the mountain acacia, wild pear and the paperbark acacia. There are also many aloes, wild herbs and over 100 grass species. Many types of rare endemic plants have been recorded.
  Fauna
  Matobo National Park has a wide diversity of fauna: 175 bird, 88 mammal, 39 snake and 16 fish species. Game include white rhinos, sable antelopes, impala and leopards. The park contains the world's densest population of the latter, due to the abundance of hyrax, which make up 50% of their diet. The game park in the west has been restocked with white and black rhinos, the former from KwaZulu-Natal in the 1960s and the latter from the Zambezi Valley in the 1990s. It has been designated as an Intensive Protection Zone for the two species, as well as hyenas, hippopotami, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and ostriches.
  Matobo National Park contains the highest concentration of black eagles, and breeding pairs of these birds, worldwide.
  A limnological research centre has operated since 1950 at Maleme Dam and researched species such as the yellow-fish, Barbus mattozi.