Gir Forest
— — the last wood the Asiatic lion calls home.
Not only on a wall.
“Dry deciduous forest across the low hills of Saurashtra, in southwest Gujarat. Teak, acacia, and sun-cured grass run to the horizon, broken by seasonal rivers and the long shadows of the Maldhari cattle herders who still graze inside the boundary. This is the only place on earth where the Asiatic lion still lives wild. The roar at dusk carries further than the eye expects, and then the heat settles back.
Gir Forest, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gir Forest covers roughly 1,412 square kilometres of dry deciduous woodland in the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat, western India, across the Junagadh and Gir Somnath districts. The protected area was first declared a sanctuary in 1965 and a national park core was added in 1975. It is the only natural habitat in the world of the Asiatic lion, Panthera leo persica; the 2020 census counted 674 lions inside and around the boundary. The forest also holds leopard, chital, sambar, nilgai, and more than 300 bird species across its hills and ravines.
The Maldhari, a pastoralist people of cattle herders, have lived inside Gir for generations in small settlements called nesses. Several nesses remain within the boundary, and their humped Gir cattle are part of the forest's long economy. The reserve is the last hold of a lion that once ranged from the Mediterranean to eastern India; by 1900 the population had fallen to roughly two dozen animals before the Nawab of Junagadh closed Gir to hunting. The forest still keeps the silence of a place that came back from the edge.
Gir is open to visitors from mid-October to mid-June each year and closes for the monsoon months of June through October. Permitted safari routes run from Sasan Gir village in shared and private gypsies, with morning and afternoon slots booked through the Gujarat Forest Department. Devalia Safari Park, a fenced enclosure inside the sanctuary, offers a shorter circuit with high lion-sighting odds for day visitors. The nearest railhead is Junagadh, about 60 kilometres north; the nearest airport is Rajkot.