Kevladev National Park, National park in Bharatpur, India.

Keoladeo National Park is a 29 km2 reserve 2 km south-east of Bharatpur, where dry grassland with tall grass species, scattered trees and woodland thickets meet a human-made wetland of mounds, dykes and open water. About one third of the park is wetland, flooded during the monsoon and drying in places afterwards; kadam, jamun and babul grow in the wooded pockets.

The history of the area goes back to the 1850s when the ruling family of Bharatpur established the land as a hunting ground for waterfowl. The reserve was designated a national park in 1982 and three years later it received recognition as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The park is locally called Ghana, and its name comes from the Keoladeo (Shiva) temple standing inside it. The Ajan Bund, built by Maharaja Suraj Mal between 1726 and 1763 at the meeting of the Gambhir and Banganga rivers, created the wetland. Annual duck shoots were once held here in honour of British viceroys.

The park is most rewarding to visit during the winter months from October to March when temperatures are comfortable and migratory birds arrive from different regions. A network of paved paths leads through different sections of the grounds and can be explored on foot, by bicycle or with a cycle rickshaw.

More than 370 bird species use the area during the year, including waterfowl from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China and Siberia that stop here during their migrations. The grounds originally served for food production before artificial flooding transformed the land into wetland and created an unexpected draw for thousands of birds.