The park’s story began in 1898 with the Sabi Game Reserve, a southern section created to protect wildlife from excessive hunting. James Stevenson-Hamilton took charge as warden in 1902, steering its growth until 1946. The Singwitsi Reserve, encompassing the Shingwedzi River area, joined in 1903, and by 1926, these lands and nearby farms merged into Kruger National Park, covering 19,485,000,000 square meters as South Africa’s first national park. Tourism kicked off in 1923 with the “Round in Nine” railway tours, ferrying adventurers from Komatipoort to Tzaneen. Over decades, native tribes were displaced, with the last, the Makuleke, removed from the Pafuri triangle in the 1960s.

Development marched on with fencing starting in 1959 along the Crocodile River, spreading to the west and north by 1960, and later eastward to manage disease and poaching. In 1969, the Makuleke were uprooted from the north, their land absorbed into the park’s 19,485,000,000 square meters. In 1996, they regained 19,842 hectares (198.42 square kilometers), or 198,420,000 square meters, and chose tourism over resettlement, launching lodges with private partners. Kruger now connects to Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou and Mozambique’s Limpopo National Parks as part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, while UNESCO honors it within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve.