Parks & Public Lands

Acadia National Park

Where the mountains meet the sea in Maine

Arches National Park

The world's greatest concentration of natural arches

Assateague Island National Seashore

A wild-horse barrier island shared by Maryland and Virginia

Badlands National Park

Eroded buttes, fossil beds and prairie in southwestern South Dakota

Bears Ears

A vast cultural landscape in southeastern Utah

Big Bend National Park

Desert, river canyons and mountains on the Texas-Mexico border

Biscayne National Park

A park that is 95 percent water, at Miami's doorstep

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

A sheer, shadowed gorge of ancient rock in western Colorado

Bryce Canyon National Park

A natural amphitheater of red rock spires

Canyonlands National Park

Utah’s largest park, carved by the Colorado and Green rivers

Cape Cod National Seashore

Forty miles of Atlantic beach and dune on the Outer Cape

Cape Hatteras National Seashore

The first national seashore, on North Carolina's eroding Outer Banks

Capitol Reef National Park

Utah park along the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile wrinkle in Earth

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Vast limestone caverns carved from an ancient reef in New Mexico

Channel Islands National Park

Five wild islands off Southern California, called North America's Galápagos

Chugach National Forest

Alaska's glacier-fringed forest around Prince William Sound

Congaree National Park

South Carolina’s old-growth bottomland forest of champion trees

Crater Lake National Park

Oregon’s only national park, around the deepest lake in the U.S.

Craters of the Moon

A vast lava landscape on the Idaho plain

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

A recovered river valley between Cleveland and Akron

Death Valley National Park

The hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America

Denali National Park

Six million acres of Alaskan wilderness around the high one

Devils Tower

America's first national monument, a butte in Wyoming

Dinosaur National Monument

A fossil wall and river canyons on the Colorado-Utah line

Dry Tortugas National Park

Fort Jefferson and remote coral keys 70 miles west of Key West

Everglades National Park

A vast subtropical wetland — a "river of grass"

Gates of the Arctic National Park

Roadless Brooks Range wilderness entirely north of the Arctic Circle

Glacier Bay National Park

A 65-mile fjord uncovered by retreating ice in southeast Alaska

Glacier National Park

The "Crown of the Continent" in Montana

Grand Canyon National Park

The park protecting Arizona's mile-deep gorge

Grand Staircase-Escalante

A giant geologic staircase of cliffs in southern Utah

Grand Teton National Park

The jagged Tetons above Jackson Hole

Great Basin National Park

Ancient bristlecone pines and a marble cave in eastern Nevada

Great Sand Dunes National Park

North America's tallest dunes beneath Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The most visited national park in the country

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

West Texas park around a fossil reef and the state’s highest peak

Haleakalā National Park

The sacred House of the Sun on East Maui

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Active volcanoes and new land on the Big Island

Hot Springs National Park

Thermal springs and historic Bathhouse Row in the Ouachita Mountains

Indiana Dunes National Park

Lake Michigan dunes, bogs and prairies between Chicago and steel mills

Isle Royale National Park

Roadless Lake Superior island famed for its wolves and moose

Joshua Tree National Park

Where two deserts meet in Southern California

Katmai National Park

Alaska Peninsula volcanoes, the 1912 eruption and Brooks Falls bears

Kenai Fjords National Park

Harding Icefield glaciers spilling into the Gulf of Alaska

Kings Canyon National Park

Sierra Nevada canyon country and home of the Nation's Christmas Tree

Kobuk Valley National Park

Arctic sand dunes and caribou crossings in northwest Alaska

Lake Clark National Park

Volcanoes, salmon lakes and Dena’ina homeland southwest of Anchorage

Lassen Volcanic National Park

The southernmost active Cascade volcano and its boiling hydrothermal basins

Mammoth Cave National Park

Kentucky park above the longest known cave system on Earth

Mesa Verde National Park

Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, the first park created to protect human works

Mount Rainier National Park

Wildflower meadows beneath a great Cascade volcano

Mount Rushmore

The 60-foot presidential faces carved into the Black Hills

Muir Woods

Old-growth coast redwoods near San Francisco

National Park of American Samoa

Rainforest and coral reef leased from Samoan villages south of the equator

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

Ancient Appalachian river gorge that became the 63rd national park

North Cascades National Park

Glacier-clad peaks in Washington, among the least-visited U.S. parks

Ocala National Forest

Florida's sand pine scrub and spring-fed forest, the oldest in the East

Olympic National Park

Rainforest, mountains, and wild coast in Washington

Padre Island National Seashore

The longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, on the Texas coast

Papahānaumokuākea

The vast protected ocean of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

Petrified Forest National Park

Triassic fossil logs and Painted Desert badlands in Arizona

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Mineral-streaked sandstone cliffs on Lake Superior, the first national lakeshore

Pinnacles National Park

Half of an ancient volcano, carried north by the San Andreas Fault

Pisgah National Forest

The birthplace of American forestry, in the North Carolina mountains

Point Reyes National Seashore

A fog-wrapped peninsula riding the Pacific Plate north of San Francisco

Rainbow Bridge

A sacred stone arch above Lake Powell

Redwood National Park

Home of the world's tallest known tree on California's north coast

Rocky Mountain National Park

High peaks and alpine tundra in Colorado

Saguaro National Park

Two desert districts flanking Tucson, home of the giant saguaro

Sequoia National Park

Home of the largest trees on Earth

Shenandoah National Park

A long ribbon of the Blue Ridge in Virginia

Shoshone National Forest

America's first national forest, east of Yellowstone in Wyoming

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Towering perched dunes on the Lake Michigan shore of northern Michigan

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

North Dakota badlands where a future president became a rancher

Tongass National Forest

The largest U.S. national forest, a temperate rainforest in Southeast Alaska

Virgin Islands National Park

Caribbean park covering most of St. John and its reefs

Voyageurs National Park

Water-bound Minnesota park on the old fur-trade canoe route

White Mountain National Forest

New England's only national forest, crowned by the Presidential Range

White Sands National Park

The world’s largest gypsum dunefield, in New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin

Wind Cave National Park

Black Hills park of boxwork caves and bison prairie

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

The largest U.S. national park, where four mountain ranges converge

Yellowstone National Park

The world's first national park, atop a supervolcano

Yosemite National Park

Granite cliffs and waterfalls in the Sierra Nevada

Zion National Park

A deep red sandstone canyon in southern Utah