The Ranthambhore National Park, which is a part of the much larger Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, lies in the Sawai Madhopur district of eastern Rajasthan. The river Chambal forms a natural boundary of the Park towards the east, and on the eastern shore of Chambal lies the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. To the northeast of the Park, flows the river – Banas, a tributary of Chambal. Across the river Banas, lies the Keladevi sanctuary, while the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary lies to the south of the Park. Both these sanctuaries, like the National Park, are part of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. Today, the reserve spans over 1334 square kilometers of area, of which only 392 square kilometers is the Ranthambhore National Park.

Ranthambhore’s unique climatic and vegetational features have given rise to forests that are dry and open with little and stunted ground cover. This makes wildlife viewing relatively easier. It is no wonder that Ranthambhore is one of the best places in the world to observe wild tigers.

Besides tigers, the other wild cats found in Ranthambhore are Leopard, Caracal, Jungle cat, Rusty Spotted cat. The ungulates include Sambhar deer, Spotted deer (Chital), Blue bull (Nilgai), Chinkara (Indian gazelle) and Wild boar. The other large mammals that can be seen in Ranthambhore are the Sloth bear, Indian fox, Jackal, the very occasional Wolf, Indian wild dogs (Dhole), Small Indian Civet, Palm civet, Common Indian and Small Indian mongoose and Striped Hyena. Over all, there are over 300 species of birds, both resident and migratory, nearly 40 species of mammals, and many different species of fish, reptiles and amphibians in the area.

Human activity, such as, unplanned and illegal felling of trees, quarrying, farming and excessive grazing has greatly diminished the vegetation of the surrounding areas of the Reserve. The area inside the Reserve, however, is one of the finest biosphere reserves of the country, where typical dry and mixed deciduous forests exist in near total wilderness.

During the 19th century there was excellent forest cover almost all over India. The population density was very low and exploitation of forests to fulfill local needs was negligible. During that period the forests of Ranthambhore were the private and exclusive hunting reserves of the Jaipur royal family.

These forests were managed by the Shikar Khana Department (Hunting Department) of the Jaipur state. The local villagers were allowed to take many kinds of forest produces in unlimited quantities for their private use, after payment of an annual tax (called Babs). In selected areas of the forests, which were used for hunting by the royalty, grazing and tree felling were strictly forbidden, but there were few restrictions, elsewhere. However, due to the low population density, there was hardly any damage to the forests.