Talk:List of national parks of the United States

Map ?
It is a bit surprising that this article was promoted to Featured list status without a proper map of all national parks (as in the French and German articles). Poppy (talk) 09:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please don't criticise the article with this "proper map" and "surprising" junk. There is a Wikilinked map in the navbox at the bottom of the page. Reywas92 Talk 16:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A map showing location and extent of each park (example) would be useful. One park one dot is a bit simplistic. --Elekhh (talk) 21:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Visitation Column
Just wondering a creating a visitation column for the US national Parks. That way people can sort by most visited US national parks. The information can be verified for visitation through the US National Park Service, for citation concerns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.183.184.25 (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

poorly used table format
For most reasonable browser window widths, the table format really impedes the readability of the list. The rightmost text has fewer words per line than frontpage newspaper articles and the vast majority of the table space in each row is empty. This would be much easier to read in a more conventional inline format. 71.103.149.123 (talk) 04:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't know why we see so many tables of this sort. If users are really likely to want to compare park areas and so forth, leave the numerical information in a table but move the text in the last column and the images into non-tabular sections.Bill (talk) 02:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

resource?
Dust Up; Biologist Jayne Belnap warns of the consequences for the American West if we don't preserve a home for the minute organisms that live in desert topsoil by Brendan Borrell Scientific American January 5, 2012 (page 80 to 83, January 2012 issue) Jayne Belnap is a Research Ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey with a research focus of the biological crusts that hold in place desert dust and their ecological impact on human activities. Excerpt “We just need to start putting dust into the equation.”

See A Crust of Dust: Degradation of Desert Topsoil by Human Activities May Wreak Havoc with the Environment by Brendan Borrell and Gary Stix January 10, 2012; and, Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park, Regional effects of global warming, Soil crust and dirt (soil), nitrogen fixation and carbon fixation, global warming, effects of global warming, Climate change in the United States, planetary boundaries, Collema (lichen), grasses, Bureau of Land Management, Land use, ... ; excerpt ... 99.190.80.182 (talk) 09:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Confusions Mistakes with the dates
It looks like there are some mistakes / confusion with the dates. It is mentionned that the dates indicate when the park was formed but it looks like it is sometimes confusing between :
 * Date of authorisation
 * Date when established.

For example, for Isle Royale National Park, the dates don't correspond on the article and here. Poppy (talk) 22:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Editing park descriptions for style
I have recently made several edits to the description paragraphs for most of the 59 national parks in the table. The last two edits I made, which updated the page's info for Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion, were undone because they were believed to have constituted 'puffery'. I don't think this is the case, however, because my edits contain useful information and additional links. Many of the descriptions on this page suffered from weak grammar and especially poor and/or uninspiring style; I'm simply trying to improve them with a more attractive and inviting style; these parks are America's greatest natural resources, and the descriptions should reflect that.

Most of the revisions only consist of a few minor changes; others include more information to help readers to better imagine (in concise paragraphs) the amazing things each park protects. I updated most of the park descriptions, yet only the Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion revisions were undone. At the very least there should be consistency. Out of all the parks, these final three in the list perhaps benefit the most from such changes in style. PJsg1011 (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WHERE are the WV National Parks
This list contains none of the National Parks of West Virginia, UNLESS I have missed something???Coal town guy (talk) 00:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * OH I SEE, its a unit administered by the National Park System..ALTHOUGH, the national park literature states otherwise...OH WELL.Coal town guy (talk) 00:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Hawai'i has an apostrophe
I know it's a transliteration, but the "ee" sounds are separated and an apostrophe better indicates that. I almost changed it, but then realized that every place it says "Hawaii" is a link to another page, and by changing them I would be making them links to pages that do not exist. I still think things should be changed in regard to this (although I know it's a minor point), but moving the sites is beyond my ability and would take a lot of work (changing the links on all the pages that link to them). 72.70.227.56 (talk) 00:22, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Puerto Rico? Not in sight!
Hawaii may be an apostrophe here, but Puerto Rico, with one of the oldest U.S. National Parks, is not even in sight. What is the reason? Thanks Caballero /  Historiador ⎌  03:56, 19 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The reason is simple. El Yunque National Forest is not a National Park.  National Forests are not part of the National Park System, and they are administered by a different agency, the US Forest Service.  To most visitors, National Forests may appear similar to National Parks, but they exist for different purposes.  Puerto Rico has only one NPS unit, San Juan National Historic Site, which doesn't carry the 'National Park' designation.  This list is only for NPS units designated National Parks.
 * –Sparkgap (talk) 03:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much for your simple yet clear answer. Perhaps a similar explanation should appear in this page as well as in the National Forests'. Your answer prompted me to scrutinize the NPS and National Forest's sites, and I see now where I should change a few things in my articles. Yet, a new question arose. Where would it fit in Wikipedia the land owned and managed by the NPS which is neither Parks nor Historic Sites/Parks? The NPS, for example, had acquired several acres of federally owned land in Puerto Rico. See here. Some of them are even called "Parks" in the NPS page. This might be the reason why some sites promote them as National Parks. See here. What are these? Limbo land?  Thanks.   Caballero /  Historiador ⎌  04:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Your second link seems to just be throwing around the name as a header, they definitely have no relationship to any other national parks. Looking around it seems that PR may call its equivalent of state parks 'national parks', but they're purely local. About the first link, the NPS owns or manages a lot of land around the country that isn't part of an official park or site, which requires a congressional designation. It seems like those parcels are owned by the federal government, which decided that management by NPS would be most convenient even if it has no official status, but I'd have to do more research on it. Reywas92 Talk 08:39, 21 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The first list from the NPS shows all properties they had/have some involvement with, but they do not own or manage any of them (except those pertaining to San Jaun National Historic Site). NPS has programs where they help state and local government establish parks, either by providing funds to buy land or facilitating the transfer of surplus federal land.  NPS also administrators programs like the National Register of Historic Places, which provides guidance to the owners of historic properties, on the preservation of that property.  All those projects end up on a state's list of where the NPS has worked.
 * The second list from some independent tourism website. The site does not strike me as a reliable source of information.  It is likely more concerned with getting people to visit Puerto Rico than correctly distinguishing between a local, state/commonwealth or national parks.  Even if the some of the names are correct, the 'National Park' designator could have been pushed by Commonwealth Legislators who favor independence over statehood.  If such is the case, those 'National Parks' would be within the context of Puerto Rico as a nation and not the United States.
 * –Sparkgap (talk) 05:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all. Excellent explanations about the NPS possible handling of spaces and the local names. I agree with your assessment of the sites too. Caballero / Historiador ⎌  02:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

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Establishment Dates
I've noticed many edits on this article seem to be a back and forth changing of dates. There's consistent disagreement over whether the date listed should be the date the area was established as protected area or when it was designated a national park. I propose the following compromise, why not list both? I see no reason we can't have two separate columns labeled "date national park established" and "date area preserved" respectively. Do other editors here think this will help resolve the cycle of date reversion that keeps going on here? –Sparkgap (talk) 21:09, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of national parks of the United States
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of national parks of the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "npsakso1": From Katmai National Park and Preserve:  From Kobuk Valley National Park:  From Lake Clark National Park and Preserve:  From Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve:  From Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve: </li> <li>From Kenai Fjords National Park: </li> <li>From Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:39, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Park & preserve combo reference
I added a 'citation needed' tag on this sentence in the opening paragraph: Seven national parks (six in Alaska) are paired with a National Preserve. I'm not sure this is accurate. I know that Great Sand Dunes (in Colorado) is paired directly with a preserve, and adjoining Everglades (in Florida) is Big Cypress National Preserve (and I believe they are jointly managed). That would be 2 outside of Alaska (without much thought or research into the whole system). Hence, I think the sentence should be checked. - Hooperswim (talk) 17:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the seventh park with a preserve is Great Sand Dunes. All seven of those are indeed paired, with official documentation calling them "National Park and Preserve" with a single website, like https://www.nps.gov/grsa/index.htm. Big Cypress has its own website and map, along with its own visitor centers and activities. Even if it shares a border and some administration with Everglades, numerous other units do too but are not explicitly paired by the NPS, so with some thought and research I have reverted your edit. Reywas92Talk 20:04, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Question about park visitation numbers
Does anyone know when the NPS updates park visitation numbers? I've spent the last few months updating numbers on individual park pages, and I see that the numbers for this article haven't been updated past 2014. If the NPS publishes the number pretty soon after the new year, I'll hold off on making any edits/updates until they do. That being said, I noticed that past edits regarding this topic were made in/around June. If it's going to be that long a wait, perhaps I should update the numbers on this article to 2015's figures now. I just didn't want to post numbers if they become old news a day later.Pistongrinder (talk) 18:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * NPS fiscal year ends September 30th and they state "This report [based on fiscal year] is available after the last calendar year" so maybe soon for that specific report. For calendar year reports it's probably somewhat later. You could email the question to nrss_social_science_stats@nps.gov. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 21:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I will email them. Thanks for the info, Brian.Pistongrinder (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserves - sortable columns?
Any value to adding two sortable columns to mark all national parks that are designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserves? Currently, only a non-sortable "(WHS)" is shown at the end of each description. It would be easier to just add "(BR)" to relevant descriptions instead of sortable columns, especially since those columns would mostly be blank, wasted space for the majority of parks, but then the sorting option is lost. How many readers would use such a sorting option? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure whether anyone has an opinion either way, or is too cautious about getting involved in a potentially long-winded argument about something so inconsequential. Anyway, proceeding with the simpler option of adding "(BR)" to relevant descriptions. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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"National Park" versus "national park"
Capitalization of the above term is inconsistent in the article. I believe it should always be "National Park", as the parks in question were given that title by the government. The term national park is another matter; see the linked article for a possible definition. For example, the IUCN designates the term as a category II protected area. However, some U.S. National Parks are a different category (e.g., Gates of the Arctic, and Glacier Bay, are both category VI). Since this involves a number of edits, I'd like to hear what other people think before proceeding. --Larry/Traveling_Man (talk) 21:30, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Oops! Exception--LEAVE AS IS:
 * "Other units of the National Park Service (417 altogether) are broadly referred to as national parks". --Larry/Traveling_Man (talk) 21:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Was this issue resolved, or not? Currently, almost all uses throughout this article are in upper case, except for the title and the final sentence of the lead. Shouldn't all instances be in lower case, except for 'National Park Service' and when a specific park name precedes the words? (see capitalization and MOS: note that the NPS uses 'national park' in one of the primary refs for this article - "The National Parks: Index 2009–2011" (establishment dates) - though their usage in other documents may be as inconsistent as here in Wikipedia) Brian W. Schaller (talk) 05:22, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. Done. I originally used caps to distinguish from the common use of the term referring to other NPS units but looking at it again lowercase would be correct. Reywas92Talk 06:28, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect article edit summary--Change "National parks" to
My fingers decided to hit the ENTER key prematurely. The edit summary should have said: Change "National parks" to "National Parks", as in the next sentence. --Larry/Traveling_Man (talk) 21:26, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Gateway Arch National Park
Time to update? It appears official now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.253.106 (talk) 14:02, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Gateway Arch National Park area size
According to this article it is 192.83 acres, but according to the article Gateway Arch National Park it is 91 acres, which is also the number in the park internet site אביהו (talk) 22:32, 30 March 2018 (UTC).
 * I used the value the NPS gave for Gateway Arch National Park's predecessor, Jefferson Expansion National Memorial, in their annual acreage log (https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/FileDownload/11403). If we find an updated source, we'll replace it. Sbb618 (talk) 15:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The figures used in this article are all the "gross area acres" including "other public acres" (state-owned or city-owned land) and private acres contained within nat'l park boundaries, which accounts for the larger number. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 20:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

What is nation?
What is nation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.126.169.6 (talk) 06:42, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Interactive map
First of all thanks User:Brian_W._Schaller for mentioning and commenting not working link.

To start from beginning - I believe that it is beneficial for article readers to have some interactive map of all parks.

Generally as a reader I will also prefer to have state parks marked in some way on map.

I tried to use Kartographer extensions, but right now GeoJSON file is too large.

Thats why I included inter wiki link to ShareMap - generally the policy is that interwiki links not like external links can be included inline inside article (Help:Interwiki_linking). For example take a look on the WorldCat link in this article - The_Firm_(novel). But it is up to you guys - if you prefer to move link to the bottom to external link or references please do this. Also there are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkan997 (talk • contribs) 11:07, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Map link moved to the external links section: the map was very slow to load when tested tonight, on a broadband connection averaging over 70 Mbps; the site indicates that it is still in beta testing phase, though maybe that is dated information (see ); the map must be zoomed in, a lot, to see where about half of the parks are located, whereas the existing GeoGroupTemplate's OpenStreetMap shows all park locations, even zoomed out to the full country or further, along with links in the left margin that lead back to the park's entry in the table, and thence to the Wikipedia article about the park, if desired. An optional setting in the OpenStreetMap, accessed via the wrench icon at the top of the left margin, will also display park names and an article link over the map on mouse hover ("show Popup Text"). The GeoGroupTemplate box was moved up to the top of the table, so it's more easily seen. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 04:25, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

OK - thanks for info --Jkan997 (talk) 22:19, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I was able to make an interactive map using mapframe/wikidata. Let me know what you think and I can add it to the page User:Acebarry/sandbox/National_Park_Map Acebarry (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Great work, looks very nice! Two concerns: Unfortunately the mapframe uses Mercator scale, so it would look much better if it were initially centered on just the contiguous states without Alaska making it look so distorted. And there's inconsistency with the parks paired with national preserves – Denali, Gates of the Arctic, New River Gorge, and Great Sand Dunes have their connected preserves colored in, while Lake Clark, Wrangell/SE, and Glacier do not; not sure if that can be made consistent (either way) with the data source you have. It could replace the visitation map then. Thank you! Reywas92Talk 02:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Regarding the map frame, agreed. I'll update it before updating the main page. Regarding the areas, all that data is held in OpenStreetMap. I am on a mission to add more maps to parks pages so I'll get to that eventually. It's doable but will take much more time. Acebarry (talk) 00:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay cool, would love to see these in other places too! What's the process you do for this? I could only tell that it calls the wikidata entry for the US National Parks. This is the official NPS map for the all the units if you hadn't seen it before. I don't recall seeing a map of all the national monuments across the several agencies but Natural Atlas has great details. Reywas92Talk 02:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a little involved, but I can give a summary. First thing's first, the items you want to map have to be in Wikidata. For all the items you want to map, you should make sure they are tagged with an OpenStreetMap relation (that's not strictly necessary but it makes OpenStreetMap<->WikiData lookups much easier). Once you have your items, you need to write a WikiData query to look them up. Here's an example of that https://w.wiki/3FdS . Up until now it's easy. The next step is to make sure that all the items you want to map are also on OpenStreetMap relations. Each of the relations need to have a WikiData entry tagged to them, like this https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4716642 (look at the key-value pairs on the left side of the page). How to make the relation is way out of scope of Wikipedia. And that's it! Maybe I should write a proper post on this with pictures and all that, I'm not even sure if it's clear just written out without images. Acebarry (talk) 00:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure I could do it myself yet but that's very interesting! Would be glad to collaborate on the next one if I can figure it out. Reywas92Talk 06:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Acebarry Great job on the interactive map! I just wanted to let you know that it is missing Glacier National Park in Montana. Mjp797 (talk) 19:05, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Also missing Redwood National Park in California. --73.223.195.212 (talk) 07:45, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Also missing Haleakala National Park in Hawaii. Also some of the Great Lakes (Huron, Erie, Ontario) are tan colored instead of blue. Bob9999999 (talk) 23:10, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Just want to add that I identified some other missing/strange looking parks. I'm looking in to them too, but everyone is welcome to investigate:
 * Haleakalā National Park - Relation #8174174
 * Saguaro National Park - Relation #9529323
 * Kenai Fjords National Park - Relation #9563873
 * Glacier National Park - Relation #1242641
 * Redwood National and State Parks - Relation #9574046
 * For two, Glacier National Park and Redwood National Park, I was able to identify overlapping ways in OSM Inspector. Those changes should reflect in a few days. I'm still looking in to the others. I am confident the issue is in OSM. Acebarry (talk) 21:13, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I can confirm four of the five are now showing as expected. The 5th, Saguaro National Park, is showing but is only an outline. I'll investigate it. I do really think the interactive map is much better for data exploration, so thank you for bearing with me on this! Acebarry (talk) 00:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

National Parks Missing on Interactive Map
I'm not sure if a Wikipedia representative will read this, but if so, you are missing the following (pretty famous) National Parks on the interactive map:

- Glacier National Park, Montana - Redwood National Park, California - Haleakaia National Park, Hawaii

Please add these parks to your interactive map, and anywhere else where they may be missing to bring up to correct status.

Thank you! - M. Frank 47.132.148.152 (talk) 18:34, 19 November 2021 (UTC)


 * White Sands National Park is also missing.
 * I have added an (incomplete) notation to the interactive map description so that readers aren't misled into using it as a reliable source. ltleelim (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah we need someone to fix it. Can we fix it? Maybe, I’m not skilled in that area of externally linking the selected 63 US national parks on OpemStreetMap. Hope some editor with higher knowledge can fix such problems Jerry Steinfield (talk) 23:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It’s being discussed, but the work on it has not been finished yet Jerry Steinfield (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2022 (UTC)