The Minneriya National Park is located 182km from Colombo on the main road to Polonnaruwa via Habarana. The main entrance to the Park is situated at Ambagaswewa, 8.8km from Habarana on the Colombo Polonnaruwa road.

The core of Minneriya National Park is in an uninhabited area of the country’s most diverse natural systems, with intermediate forest, baboo stands, patanas and talawas. Nowhere else does it seem that such diversity is represented within a single protected area, particularly on such an intact state.

The park is famous for the huge gathering of Elephants. The gathering begins from the middle July and ends around the middle of the October, with number at their peak in August and September. It is a seasonal movement of Elephants not quite a migration in the sense of what biologists mean by a migration. A one kilometer quadrate can have over 300 elephants gathered on the receding of the shores of the Minneriya Tank.

Minneriya tank was built by King Mahasen in the 3rd century AD. A small temple was built in his memory inside the park. From November to March, Minneriya tank usually fills up with the northeast monsoon rains. In the following months the water recedes through draw down for cultivation, thereby exposing the rich shoreline where the grasses sprout attracting elephants and other herbivores.

Another unique aspect of Minneriya National Park is the possibility of Night Safaris.