Matt Ginnow

  Grand Canyon National Park , located in northwestern Arizona , is the 15th site in the United States to have been named a national park . The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon , a gorge of the Colorado River , which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World . The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km 2 ) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than six million recreational visitors in 2017, which is the second highest count of all American national parks after Great Smoky Mountains National Park . [5] The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.     

  Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States , with parts in Tennessee and North Carolina . The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains , part of the Blue Ridge Mountains , which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain . The park contains some of the highest mountains in eastern North America, including Clingmans Dome , Mount Guyot , and Mount Le Conte . The border between the two states runs northeast to southwest through the center of the park. The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of the park on its route from Georgia to Maine . With 12.5 million visitors in 2019, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States. [5] Map Highlighting the Park's Boundaries The park encompasses 522,419 acres (816.28 sq mi; 211,415.47 ha; 2,114.15 km 2 ), making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. [3] The

  The United States has 62 protected areas known as national parks [1] that are operated by the National Park Service , an agency of the Department of the Interior . National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress . A bill creating the first national park, Yellowstone , was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Mackinac National Park in 1875 (decommissioned in 1895), and then Rock Creek Park (later merged into National Capital Parks ), Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." [2] Many current national parks had been previously protected as national monuments by the president under the Antiquities Act before being upgr