How are national parks chosen?

Congress decides whether an area should be added to the National Park System or whether some other action might be appropriate. Congression- al committees usually hold hearings on proposed additions to the System and ask the Secretary of the Interior for recommendations.



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Yellowstone National Park - 1872 On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant designated Yellowstone as the first national park in the United States and the world. Today, the park is home to the world's largest collection of geysers, including the iconic Old Faithful.

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A national park is an area set aside by a national government for the preservation of the natural environment. A national park may be set aside for public recreation and enjoyment or for its historical or scientific interest while keeping most landscapes and their accompanying plants and animals in their natural state.

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The largest national park is Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska: at over 8 million acres (32,375 km2), it is larger than each of the nine smallest states. The next three largest parks are also in Alaska.

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The first one established by Congress was Big Cypress National Preserve (88 Stat. 1258 (1974)). They differ from national parks in that bans on the use of these lands are not as strict. The above-mentioned restrictions for national parks are not always true for national preserves.

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California has the most with nine, followed by Alaska with eight, Utah with five, and Colorado with four.

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The New River Gorge was given National Park Service protection in 1978 as a national river, and was expanded to New River Gorge National Park & Preserve — this country's newest national park — in the plague year of 2020 courtesy of legislation drafted by Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito.

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Instead, the name was attributed as early as 1805 to Native Americans who were referring to yellow sandstones along the banks of the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, several hundred miles downstream and northeast of the Park.

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