Sangay National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Sangay) is a protected area in the provinces of Morona-Santiago, Chimborazo, Tungurahua, Cañar, and Azuay in Ecuador. The park includes two active volcanoes, Tungurahua and Sangay, and one extinct volcano, El Altar (Kapak Urku). Sangay National Park covers elevations from 900 to 5,319 meters (2,953 to 17,451 feet) above sea level. It has many different habitats, such as glaciers, volcanic areas, tropical rainforests, cloud forests, wetlands, grasslands, and one of the largest páramo regions (high elevation moorlands) in Ecuador. The park has 327 lakes that feed into a large wetland system covering 31.5 square kilometers (12.2 square miles).

Because of its diverse ecosystems and rich variety of plant and animal life, the park was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 1992, it was added to the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger due to illegal hunting, overgrazing, roads built without planning, and people moving into the park's edges. The park was removed from the list of endangered sites in 2005.

Biodiversity

Sangay National Park protects a large number of native species because of its many different habitats, rich volcanic soil, and landscape that has not changed much over time. More than 3,000 types of flowering plants, 430 bird species, 107 mammal species, 33 amphibian species, 14 reptile species, and 17 fish species live in the park.

The park is an important home for rare Andean animals, including the mountain tapir and spectacled bear. It is especially important for protecting the endangered mountain tapir. In the forests of the park, spectacled bears, giant otters, jaguars, ocelots, margays, Brazilian tapirs, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus ustus), little red brocket deer, and Northern pudu live. Cougars and pampas cats are also found in the park. A species of shrew opossum called Caenolestes sangay was first described in 2013 using samples collected from Sangay National Park.

Over 400 bird species live in the park, and it has been recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International. Birds like the Andean condor and Andean cock-of-the-rock are among the notable species found there.

In 2016, a new frog species in the genus Pristimantis (Pristimantis tinguichaca) was discovered in the park’s cloud forest.