Tiger reserves are protected areas notified under Project Tiger and the Wildlife (Protection) Act to conserve the Bengal tiger and its habitat, administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
- Project Tiger was launched in 1973; the first nine reserves included Jim Corbett (Uttarakhand), Bandipur (Karnataka), Kanha (Madhya Pradesh), Ranthambore (Rajasthan), and Manas (Assam).
- The number of tiger reserves has grown to over fifty across India; each has a core or critical tiger habitat (inviolate, no human activity) and a buffer or peripheral zone (coexistence with people).
- The National Tiger Conservation Authority, a statutory body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, oversees Project Tiger and conducts the all-India tiger estimation every four years.
- Madhya Pradesh is often called the "Tiger State" for its tiger numbers; the Sundarban reserve (West Bengal) holds the mangrove tiger population and Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam (Andhra-Telangana) is the largest by area.
- The tiger is the national animal and an umbrella and keystone species, so protecting it conserves the wider ecosystem.
Project Tiger 1973, the NTCA as the statutory authority, the core-buffer structure, and named reserves (Corbett, Kanha, Bandipur, Sundarban) are recurring environment facts.
Tiger reserve (Project Tiger, NTCA, core plus buffer) versus a plain national park; NTCA (statutory) is distinct from the older advisory setup; Project Tiger is 1973, while the Wildlife Protection Act is 1972. Verify the latest reserve count and tiger census figure.
Project Tiger (1973) reserves with inviolate core and buffer zones, run by the statutory NTCA; over fifty exist today.