A national park is a park, in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of wild nature for prosperity and as a symbol of national pride., Furthermore, an international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined "National Park" as its Category II type of protected areas. While ideas for this type of national park had been suggested previously, the United States established the first such one, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. The largest national park in the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974. According to the IUCN, there were 6,555 national parks worldwide in 2006 that meet its criteria.
Read more about National Park: Definitions, History
Other articles related to "national park, national parks, park, national":
... Kéran National Park is located in the north of Togo, in the Kara area ... Not many tourists visit Togo as the main national parks are more accessible in Ghana ... Many of the elephants found in this national park keep wandering into Ghana ...
... The area comprises The Lakes National Park ... It is part of the Ninety Mile Beach Marine National Park, which covers 2,750 hectares and 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) of coastline, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Sale ... Rotamah Island, which is part of the Lakes National Park, has a large bird observatory, and can be visited by boat from Paynesville, about 6 kilometres (3.7 ...
... state highway system in 1912, and a branch was added from La Verkin Junction east to Zion National Park in 1916 and beyond to Mt ... Commission assigned State Route 15 to the road from Anderson Junction to the park, while State Route 16 included the branch to Hurricane (and continued southeast to Arizona via present SR-59) ... In 1927, the state legislature extended SR-15 through the park to Mt ...
... summit, has been designated as a war memorial, called the Ben Lomond National Memorial Park ... The park is dedicated to those who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars and was created out of the former Rowardennan Estate with the support of the National Heritage Memorial ... The Memorial Park was officially opened on Armistice Day in 1997 by the Rt Hon Donald Dewar, then Secretary of State for Scotland and later becoming the first First Minister of Scotland ...
... National Park is a small town on the central plateau of the North Island of New Zealand ... Also known as National Park Village it is the highest urban township in New Zealand at 825 metres ... As the name suggests, it borders the World Heritage Tongariro National Park, New Zealand's first national park created in 1887 ...
Famous quotes containing the words park and/or national:
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)
“There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people’s safety and greatness.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)