52 facts across the U.S.
Little River Canyon National Preserve in northeast Alabama is carved by one of the longest mountaintop rivers in the Uni…
The Turnagain Arm of Alaska's Cook Inlet in the southern part of the state experiences a natural phenomenon known as a t…
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska is the largest national park in the United States at 13.2 millio…
The Grand Canyon, located in Northern Arizona, is one of the first National Parks in the United States and is one of the…
Arizona contains one of the most well-preserved meteor impact sites in the world. The Barringer Meteor crashed into the…
47 hot springs flow from the southwestern slope of Hot Springs Mountain in Arkansas with an average temperature of 143 d…
Yosemite Falls in California's Yosemite National Park plunges 2,425 feet in three cascades, making it the tallest waterf…
With no dams or impediments on the river's main stem, the Delaware is one of the few remaining large free-flowing rivers…
Everglades National Park is the only place on Earth where American alligators and American crocodiles live side by side.…
Biscayne National Park, just outside Miami, is 95% water, protecting a living coral reef, mangrove shorelines, and part…
The Kazumura Cave system on the Big Island of Hawaii is the longest and deepest lava tube in the world at 40.7 miles lon…
Kilauea volcano on the Big Island has been erupting more or less continuously since 1983, making it one of the most acti…
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, contains Kīlauea and Mauna Loa — two of the world's most active vol…
Hells Canyon on the Idaho-Oregon border is the deepest river gorge in North America, plunging 7,913 feet from the peaks…
The Craters of the Moon National Monument in central Idaho covers 618,000 acres of lava fields so surreal that NASA sele…
The Indiana Dunes along the southern shore of Lake Michigan have been described as the birthplace of ecology. Starting i…
Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky is the longest known cave system in the world, with over 400 miles of explored passages…
The Chesapeake Bay, which cuts Maryland nearly in half, is the largest estuary in the United States and one of the most…
Michigan has more freshwater coastline than any state except Alaska, with 3,288 miles of shoreline along four of the fiv…
The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on the northwestern shore of Michigan's Lower Peninsula features sand dunes r…
Minnesota has 11,842 lakes that are 10 acres or larger, more than California, Florida, and Hawaii combined. The state's…
The headwaters of the Mississippi River, the third longest river in North America, are at Lake Itasca in northern Minnes…
Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota is one of the few national parks best experienced on the water — roughly 4…
The word "Mississippi" comes from the Ojibwe name "Misi-ziibi," meaning simply "Great River", and it earns the title. Th…
Glacier National Park in Montana has about 25 named glaciers remaining, down from an estimated 150 when the park was est…
Nebraska sits directly in the path of one of the most spectacular wildlife migrations in North America. Each spring, rou…
Nevada is the most mountainous state in the contiguous United States, with over 300 named mountain ranges. The popular i…
Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada shelters Great Basin bristlecone pines — among the longest-lived organisms o…
On April 12, 1934, weather observers at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire recorded a wind gust of 231 mile…
Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico contains the largest natural cave chamber in North America. Th…
Niagara Falls on the New York-Canada border is not the tallest waterfall in the world, or even the tallest in North Amer…
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, straddling the North Carolina-Tennessee border, is the most visited national pa…
Ohio's Cuyahoga Valley National Park follows 33,000 acres of the Cuyahoga River — the same river whose pollution-fueled…
Oklahoma's Chickasaw National Recreation Area was originally Platt National Park — the smallest national park ever creat…
Crater Lake in southern Oregon is the deepest lake in the United States at 1,943 feet and the ninth deepest in the world…
The rainforests of the Hoh River valley on Washington's Olympic Peninsula sit just across the border from Oregon, but Or…
The Angel Oak on Johns Island, South Carolina is a Southern live oak estimated to be between 400 and 500 years old, maki…
Congaree National Park in South Carolina protects the largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest re…
The Badlands of South Dakota form one of the richest fossil beds in the world, and the sedimentary layers exposed by ero…
Tennessee has more caves than any other state in the United States, with over 10,000 documented cave systems ranging fro…
The Great Smoky Mountains straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border are named for the natural blue haze that perpet…
Big Bend National Park in the remote trans-Pecos region of southwest Texas contains some of the darkest night skies in t…
Utah contains five national parks within a relatively compact area of the Colorado Plateau: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol…
The Great Salt Lake in northern Utah is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, but it has lost roughly 73…
The Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah, a remnant of a prehistoric lake called Lake Bonneville that once covered…
Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border is one of the most filmed landscapes in the world, its distinctive red sandst…
Shenandoah National Park, stretching along the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia, was created during the 1930s t…
Mount St. Helens erupted on the morning of May 18, 1980 in an explosion that remains the most destructive volcanic event…
The temperate rainforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula receive between 12 and 14 feet of rainfall per year, making…
New River Gorge became the United States' 63rd national park in December 2020. Despite the name, the New River is one of…
Wisconsin's Apostle Islands National Lakeshore protects 21 islands on Lake Superior. In rare, cold-enough winters, the m…
Yellowstone National Park, established by Congress in 1872 as the world's first national park, sits atop one of the larg…