The Keibul Lamjao National Park () is a national park in the Bishnupur district of the state of Manipur in Northeast India. It is in area, the only floating national park in the world, and an integral part of Loktak Lake. It is currently on the tentative lists of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, under the title "Keibul Lamjao Conservation Area (KLCA)", additionally covering the buffer of Loktak Lake (140 sq km) and Pumlen Pat (43 sq. km).
The national park is characterized by floating decomposed plant material locally called phumdi. It was created in 1966 as a wildlife sanctuary to preserve the natural habitat of the endangered Eld's deer (Cervus eldi eldi), which is the state animal of Manipur. In 1977, it was gazetted as national park.
History
The brow-antlered deer, which was first discovered in Manipur in 1839 and named Cervus eldi eldi in 1844 in honour of Lt. Percy Eld – a British officer, was reported an extinct species in 1951. It was re–discovered in the Keibul Lamjao Park area by the environmentalist and photographer E.P. Gee, which necessitated declaring this reserve park area as a national park to protect and conserve the deer now called Eld's deer's subspecies brow-antlered deer () or in Meitei language (to distinguish it from the other two subspecies found in Burma and Thailand that are called and and also in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Hainan Island). It has a pride of place in the folklore and culture of the Manipur state and is the state animal of Manipur. From a small herd of 14 deer in 1975, its population was reportedly 155 in 1995 and as per the latest wildlife census conducted in March 2016 its number rose to 260.
Geography and topography
The park is a swamp with floating mass of vegetation created by accrual of organic detritus and biomass with soil particles that has been thickened into a solid form called phumdis, at the south–eastern side of the Loktak Lake, which has been declared a Ramsar site. Two thirds to three fourths of the total park area is formed by phumdis. A waterway through the park provides year-round access by boats plying through the Loktak Lake, to the Pabot Hill in the north. The reserve area of the park which was in March 1997 was reduced to in April 1998, under pressure from the local villagers. The swamp encompasses three hills, namely, Pabot, Toya and Chingjao that provide a refuge for the large mammals during the monsoon season. The distinctive nature of the park is that it is "too deep to be marsh, too shallow to be a lake".
Ownership rights
While the area on the periphery of the park is privately owned, the park itself is predominantly state-owned.
;Weather
Temperatures vary from a maximum of in summer to a minimum of in winter. Humidity was a recorded high of 81% in August with a minimum of 49% in March.
Flora and fauna
right|thumb|250px|Brow-antlered deer or sangai or the dancing deer (Cervus eldi eldi)
The park, primarily composed of moist semi–evergreen forests, has a rich amalgam of aquatic, wetland and terrestrial ecosystem.
Aquatic flora
Aquatic flora recorded in the park include Zizania latifolia (wild rice, ishing kambong), Tripidium bengalense, Eiranthus procerus (singnang), Dioscorea bulbifera (phumha), Cynodon dactylon (tinthou), Alpinia galanga (pullei), Eichhornia crassipes (kabokang), Hedychium coronarium (loklei), Nelumbo nucifera (thambal) and Phragmites karka (tou). made by forest department Manipur. The film is available in both English and Manipuri.