Oldest National Parks in the United States

Yellowstone National Park(1872) - Idaho, Wyoming, Montana
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in  Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful Geyser.

      

Sequoia National Park(1890) - California
Sequoia National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia, California. It was established on September 25th, 1890.The park is famous for its Giant Sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five out of the ten largest trees in the world.

Yosemite National Park(1890) - California
Yosemite National Park overs an area of 761,268 acres and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain in California. Over 3.7 million people visit Yosemite each year and spend most of their time in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity.

     

Mount Rainier National Park(1899) - Washington
Mount Rainier National Park is a United States National Park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. It was one of the US's earliest National Parks, having been established on March 2, 1899. Mount Rainier is circled by the Wonderland Trail and is covered by several glaciers and snowfields totaling some 35 square miles.

 

Crater Lake National Park(1902) - Oregon
Crater Lake National Park is located in southern Oregon. This park was established on May 22, 1902. This park encompasses the Crater Lake caldera, which rests in the remains of a destroyed volcano and the surrounding forestland. This is the only National Park in Oregon. The lake is 1,949 feet deep, which makes it the deepest lake in the USA.

 

Wind Cave National Park(1903) - South Dakota
Wind Cave National Park is located 10 miles north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its displays of the calcite formation known as boxwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world's boxwork formations are found here.

   

Mesa Verde National Park(1906) - Colorado
Mesa Verde National Park is located Montezuma County, Colorado. The park occupies 81.4 square miles near the Four Corners and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the ancient Pueblo people known as the Anasazi. The Anasazi made these stone villages their home in the 1200AD. It is best known for several spectacular cliff dwellings.

   

Glacier National Park (1910) - Montana
Glacier National Park is located in Montana, bordering the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The park encompasses over 1,000,000 acres and includes parts of two mountain ranges, over 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals. Glacier National Park  were designated as the world's first International Peace Park in 1932.

   

Rocky Mountain National Park(1915) - Colorado
Rocky Mountain National Park is located in north-central Colorado. It features majestic mountain views, a variety of wildlife, varied climates and environments—from wooded forests to mountain tundra—and easy access to back-country trails and campsites. The park is located northwest of Boulder and includes the Continental Divide and the headwaters of the Colorado River.

   

Haleakala National Park(1916) - Hawaii
Haleakalā National Park is located on the island of Maui in the state of Hawaiʻi. The park covers an area of 30,183 acres.It was originally created as part of the Hawaii National Park along with the volcanoes of Mauna Loa and Kilauea on the island of Hawaiʻi in 1916. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was made into a separate national park in 1961.

   

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park(1916) - Hawaii
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park was established in 1916. It displays the results of hundreds of thousands of years of volcanism, migration, and evolution—processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems and a distinct Ancient Hawaiian culture. Kīlauea, one of the world's most active volcanoes.

   

Lassen Volcanic National Park(1916) - California
Lassen Volcanic National Park is in northeastern California. The dominant feature of the park is Lassen Peak; the largest plug dome volcano in the world and the southern-most volcano in the Cascade Range.