Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park, established as a national park in 1994 in Southern California, protects a stark, beautiful landscape where two deserts meet — the higher, cooler Mojave and the lower, hotter Colorado (a part of the Sonoran). Its namesake, the spiky Joshua tree, a giant member of the yucca family, grows in the Mojave portion, its twisted silhouettes scattered across the high desert among piles of enormous rounded granite boulders.

Those weathered granite formations, sculpted underground and then exposed, have made the park a world-famous rock-climbing destination, while its dark, clear skies draw stargazers. The transition between the two deserts gives the park an unusual range of desert life packed into a relatively small area. It draws more than three million visitors a year, many within easy reach of Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

• California
  The most populous U.S. state, admitted 1850 located in
• The Mojave Desert
  The driest desert in North America part of