Old Oyo National Park is one of the most popular tourist attraction centres in Nigeria, named after Old Oyo town called Oyo-ile - the political capital of the Oyo Empire between the 16th and 18th centuries. It has an outstanding 2,512 km² (970 sq mi) of land, most of which fall in Oyo state some extend to some part of Kwara State. Old Oyo National Park is the most unique of all the national parks in the country because it is the only one with the dual prospects of archaeological, cultural and historical park.
The park takes its name from Oyo-lle (Old Oyo), the ancient political capital of the Oyo Empire of the Yoruba people, and contains the ruins of this city. The national park originated in two earlier native administrative forest reserves, Upper Ogun established in 1936 and Oyo-lle established in 1941. These were converted to game reserves in 1952, then combined and upgraded to the present status of a national park.