Pench Tiger Reserve is fondly recalled as the true Kipling country- it is named after the Pench river which flows across the entire park. Pench's claim to a wild tiger country comes from the fact that it has the highest density of herbivore population like the chital, sambhar etc.. and the unique teak forest.

The Pench Tiger Reserve and its neighborhood is the original setting of Rudyard Kipling's most famous work, The Jungle Book.

The Pench National Park experiences a tropical kind of a climate and there are drastic variations in the climatic conditions in Pench. It has hot summers and cold winters. Early July experiences heavy rainfall and the rainy season continues for the next two months.

Experts term the Pench forest as southern tropical dry deciduous and dry mixed deciduous forest with other species of shrubs, trees and climbers. Teak and its associates moyan, mahua, mokha, skiras, tendu, bija, achar, garari, aonla, ghont, baranga, amaltas, kihamali, khair, palas are found in abundance.

Pench was voted as one of the most healthy forests in India. The fact that it contains highest density of herbivores are a testimony to that. Many consider it as one of the most beautiful forests and rightly so.

Pench Tiger Reserve was created in 1992, becoming the 19th Reserve in the Project Tiger network. The core zone of the Reserve, Pench National Park was created in 1983. This was carved out of the Pench Sanctuary created in 1977 with an area of 449.39 sq. km.