Virunga National Park is located in the Congo − Nile watershed area. Its northern sector encompasses part of the Semliki River basin, as well as savanna and montane forest of the Albertine Rift. In altitude, this sector ranges from 680 m (2,230 ft) in the Puemba River valley to the highest peak of Mount Stanley at 5,109 m (16,762 ft) within 30 km (19 mi). The national park's central sector encompasses about two third of Lake Edward up to the international border with Uganda in the east. A narrow corridor of 3–5 km (1.9–3.1 mi) width along the lake's western bank connects the northern and southern sectors of the national park. The southern sector stretches to the shores of Lake Kivu and encompasses Nyamulagira, Nyiragongo and Mikeno volcanoes with montane forests on their slopes.

In the early 1920s, several proponents of the European conservation movement championed the idea of creating a protected area in northeastern Belgian Congo, among them Victor van Straelen, Jean Massart and Jean-Marie Derscheid. When Albert National Park was established in April 1925 as Africa's first national park, it was conceived as a science-oriented nature reserve with the aim of studying and preserving wildlife and so-called ‘primitive’ hunter-gatherer African Pygmies. In 1926, Derscheid headed the first Belgian mission to cartograph Albert National Park, which encompassed an area of 500 km (190 sq mi) around the extinct volcanoes Mount Karisimbi and Mount Mikeno. The protected area was extended in 1929 by Virunga National Park, which encompassed the Virunga Mountains, parts of the Rutshuru Territory and the plains south of Lake Edward. Its initial size of 2,920.98 km (1,127.80 sq mi) was enlarged step by step in subsequent years. Indigenous people, foremost Hutus and Tutsis lost their traditional land rights in this process, and were evicted from the protected area.

When someday comes you'll need to get in.

When someday comes you'll need to be able to get around.