Serengeti in Motion

Riley Champine
National Geographic Magazine

A supplement to the December 2021 issue of National Geographic Magazine, this map shows the physical features of the landscape, the boundaries of its many protected areas, and the annual migration of over a million wildebeests-one of the last remaining large-mammal migrations on earth. The migration is represented using over 340,000 location points collected by GPS collars during an ongoing 20-year biological study. The map also explains how the timing of the seasonal rains drives migration and details the journey of an individual female wildebeest as she crossed multiple habitats, rivers, and an international boundary during 2020.

Learn more about this map in its Map Spotlight blog.

Additional credits:
National Geographic: Matthew W. Chwastyk, Katie Armstrong, Martin Gamache, Fernando G. Baptista, Taylor Maggiacomo, Alexander Stegmaier, Eve Conant, Cindy Leitner, Theodore Sickley, Scott Zillmer, Elaine Bradley; University of Glasgow: Grant Hopcraft, Thomas Morrison, Callum Buchanan; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute: Jared Stabach; Impact Observatory: Steven P. Brumby