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Yellowstone National Park

United States · North America
Lower Falls and Yellowstone River in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park
Photo: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0

Yellowstone National Park is a national park of the United States located mainly in the northwest corner of the state of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion. Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years. While non-native mountain men visited during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration by non-natives did not begin until the late 1860s. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress through the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the US, and is also widely understood to be the first national park in the world. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano. However, the U.S. Army was eve

More of Yellowstone National Park


Horace M. Albright with some bears at a table in Yellowstone National Park. Colorized by me.
Old Faithful Inn main facade from vicinity of Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park, USA
Yellowstone National Park
1959 Yellowstone earthquake. State Highway 287 slumped into Hebgen Lake; damage from the August 1959 Hebgen Lake (Montana-Yellowstone) earthquake. The main residence of Hilgard Lodge is almost complet