Did you ever wonder which are the oldest and the newest of our National Parks?

By David McClelland

The United States has 58 National Parks, operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. Each National Park is established by the U.S. Congress. 27 states have National Parks as do American Samoa and the United States Virgin Islands.

Alaska and California have the most National Parks with eight each, followed by Utah with five and Colorado with four. The largest National Park is Wrangell-St. Elias (Alaska) with over 8,000,000 acres. The smallest is Hot Springs (Arkansas) at less than 6,000 acres. The total area protected by the National Park Service is approximately 51,900,000 acres. The most visited National Park is Great Smokey Mountain with over nine million visitors a year, followed by Grand Canyon, with over four million visitors.

The first National Park, Yellowstone (Montana) was established in 1872, followed by Sequoia and Yosemite (California) in 1890.

The newest National Park is Great Sand Dunes (Colorado), established in 2004. Did you remember that? The next newest National Parks are Congaree (South Carolina) in 2003 and Cuyahoga Valley (Ohio) in 2000.

It is interesting that that we have been establishing National Parks for nearly 140 years and the newest one just seven years ago. It appears that we may not be done yet. Can you think of a new candidate?