20 miles (32 km) from Nuwara Eliya via Ambewela and Pattipola, is the Horton Plains only 3160 hectares in extent. Known to Sri Lankans as Mahaeliya, it became Horton Plains after Sir Robert Horton, British Governor from 1831- 1837. Horton Plains became a Nature Reserve in 1969 and upgraded as a National Park in 1988 due to its unique watershed and biodiversity values of the “Cloud Forest Reserve”.

Its flora has a high level of endemism. The hills are covered with diverse wet low evergreen forest with even large trees grown flattened to the ground on the higher windswept slopes. Â Horton Plains harbors 52 species of resident birds and 11 species of migrant birds.