Iowa State Preserves tend to be small parcels of land with some historic or environmental significance. The arrangement is alphabetic. This is based on information found at a website maintained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Kane County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 515,269, making it the fifth-most populous county in Illinois. Its county seat is Geneva, and its largest city is Aurora. Kane County is one of the collar counties of the metropolitan statistical area designated "Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL–IN–WI" by the US Census.
The Hocking Hills is a deeply dissected area of the Allegheny Plateau in Ohio, primarily in Hocking County, that features cliffs, gorges, rock shelters, and waterfalls. The relatively extreme topography in this area is due to the Blackhand Sandstone, a particular formation that is thick, hard and weather-resistant, and so forms high cliffs and narrow, deep gorges.
The American Discovery Trail is a system of recreational trails and roads which collectively form a coast-to-coast hiking and biking trail across the mid-tier of the United States. Horses can also be ridden on most of this trail. The coastal trailheads are the Delmarva Peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean and the northern California coast on the Pacific Ocean. The trail has northern and southern alternates for part of its distance, passing through Chicago and St. Louis respectively. The total length of the trail including both the north and south routes is 6,800 miles (10,944 km). The northern route covers 4,834 miles (7,780 km) with the southern route covering 5,057 miles (8,138 km). It is the only non-motorized coast-to-coast trail.
The Driftless Area, a region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. It was never covered by ice during the last ice age, and therefore lacks glacial deposits, also termed drift. Its landscape is characterized by steep hills, forested ridges, deeply carved river valleys, and karst geology with spring-fed waterfalls and cold-water trout streams. Ecologically, the Driftless Area's flora and fauna are more closely related to those of the Great Lakes region and New England than those of the broader Midwest and central Plains regions. The steep riverine landscape of both the Driftless Area proper and the surrounding Driftless-like region are the result of early glacial advances that forced preglacial rivers that flowed into the Great Lakes southward, causing them to carve a gorge across bedrock cuestas, thereby forming the modern incised upper Mississippi River valley. The region has elevations ranging from 603 to 1,719 feet at Blue Mound State Park, and together with the Driftless-like region, covers 24,000 square miles (62,200 km2).
The Loess Hills are a formation of wind-deposited loess soil in the westernmost parts of Iowa and Missouri, and the easternmost parts of Nebraska and Kansas, along the Missouri River.
The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is a governmental commission in Cook County, Illinois, that owns and manages a network of open spaces, containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes, that are mostly set aside as natural areas. Cook County contains Chicago, and is the center of the most densely populated urban metropolitan area in the Midwest. The Forest Preserve lands encompass approximately 70,000 acres (280 km2), about 11% of the county, providing open space within its urban surroundings. It contains facilities for recreation, as well as a zoo and a botanic garden.
The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.
Highlands Sanctuary, Inc. is a nonprofit organization which operates under the dba of The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System. The Arc of Appalachia has been in operation since 1995, working to create and steward nature preserves in the forested Appalachian counties of southern Ohio. In 2016, The Arc of Appalachia had completed the protection of 4268 acres in 15 preserve regions.
The Arkansas Valley is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Arkansas and Oklahoma. It parallels the Arkansas River between the flat plains of western Oklahoma and the Arkansas Delta, dividing the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains with the broad valleys created by the river's floodplain, occasionally interrupted by low hills, scattered ridges, and mountains. In Arkansas, the region is often known as the Arkansas River Valley, especially when describing the history and culture of the region.
