Mahale Mountains National Park lies on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in Uvinza District of Kigoma Region, Tanzania.

Named after the Mahale Mountains range that is within its borders, the park has several unusual characteristics.

(The other is nearby Gombe Stream National Park made famous by the researcher Jane Goodall.)

The Mahale mountains were traditionally inhabited by the Batongwe and Holoholo peoples, with populations in 1987 of 22,000 and 12,500 respectively.

When the Mahale Mountains Wildlife Research Center was established in 1979, the people were forcefully evicted from the mountains to make way for the park, which opened in 1985 despite the people had been highly attuned to the natural environment, living with virtually no impact on the ecology.