The Iona National Park covers about 15,200 km2 or 1.52 million hectares of Angola's Namibe Province in the south-western part of the country. It is the largest national park in Angola. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, an escarpment to the east that marks the beginning of the interior plateau, the Curoca River to the north, and the Cunene River to the south. It is about 200 kilometres south of the town of Namibe. Iona was proclaimed as a reserve in 1937 and upgraded to a national park in 1964. However, as is true for most Angolan national parks, the Angolan Civil War caused considerable disruption to the area and park management, including illegal poaching, encroachment of local people and destruction of infrastructure. In recent years, a number of government and international projects have begun rebuilding the infrastructure of the park and its management.