Acadia National Park - Terrain and Features

Terrain and Features

The park includes mountains, an ocean shoreline, woodlands, and lakes. In addition to Mount Desert Island, the park comprises much of the Isle au Haut, parts of Baker Island, and a portion of the Schoodic Peninsula on the mainland.

In total, Acadia National Park consists of more than 47,000 acres (73 square miles, 190 km2), including 30,300 acres (47 sq mi., 123 km2) on Mount Desert Island, 2,728 acres (4.6 sq mi., 11 km2) on Isle au Haut and 2,366 acres (3.5 sq mi., 9.2 km2) on the Schoodic Peninsula. The permanent park boundary, as established by act of Congress in 1986, includes a number of private in-holdings that the park is attempting to acquire.

Cadillac Mountain, named after the French Explorer of the same name, is on the eastern side of the island. Its green, lichen-covered, pink granite summit is, because of a combination of its eastern location and height, one of the first places in the United States to see the sunrise. Miles of carriage roads were originally built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The mountains of Acadia National Park offer hikers and bicycle riders views of the ocean, island lakes, and pine forests.

The inlet Somes Sound, often described as the "only fjord on the East Coast", is now called a fjard by officials

About 2 million people visit this park per year.

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