India's Tiger Reserves, From the Teak Forest of Tadoba to the Kali River

Tadoba National Park was first established in 1955 and was merged with the Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary in 1995 to form a reserve of about 1728 square kilometers in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra. Its dense teak forest shelters Bengal tigers, and mugger crocodiles live in Tadoba lake.

Bandipur was established as a tiger reserve under Project Tiger in 1973 and joined the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in 1986. The park covers about 1,456 square kilometers in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, and its forests also hold Asian elephants, gaur and dhole.

Betla forms part of the Palamu Tiger Reserve, set up under Project Tiger in 1974, and was declared a national park in 1986. At about 226 square kilometers across Latehar and Palamu districts, it is the only national park in Jharkhand.

Pench began as a wildlife sanctuary in 1977 and became a national park in 1983. Since 1992 its roughly 293 square kilometers in Seoni and Chhindwara districts, Madhya Pradesh, have formed the core zone of the Pench Tiger Reserve, alongside the Pench Mowgli Sanctuary and a buffer zone.

Valmiki was first protected as a wildlife sanctuary in 1978 and became a national park in 1990. Covering about 898 square kilometers in West Champaran district, it is the only national park in Bihar and is recognized as the eighteenth tiger reserve of India.

Nameri has covered some 200 square kilometers of Himalayan foothills in Sonitpur district, Assam, since 1978, and shares its northern boundary with the Pakhui Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh. It was declared the second tiger reserve in Assam in 2000, and its recorded wildlife includes Bengal tigers and clouded leopards.

Orang was first protected as a sanctuary in 1985 and declared a national park in 1999. Its 79 square kilometers of Brahmaputra floodplain grassland in Darrang and Sonitpur districts are sometimes called a mini Kaziranga, and hold the greater one horned rhinoceros alongside the Bengal tiger.

Anshi was established on 2 September 1987 in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, and was renamed Kali Tiger Reserve in December 2015. It now covers about 1345 square kilometers of Western Ghats rainforest and moist deciduous forest drained by the Kali river, with Bengal tigers and black panthers on record.