The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all national parks; most national monuments; and other natural, historical, and recreational properties, with various title designations. The United States Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior.
In the United States, a national monument is a protected area that can be created from any land owned or controlled by the federal government by proclamation of the president of the United States or an act of Congress. National monuments protect a wide variety of natural and historic resources, including sites of geologic, marine, archaeological, and cultural importance. The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives presidents the power to proclaim national monuments by executive action. In contrast, national parks in the U.S. must be created by Congressional legislation. Some national monuments were first created by presidential action and later designated as national parks by congressional approval.
Haleakalā National Park is a national park of the United States located on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Named after Haleakalā, a dormant volcano within its boundaries, the park covers an area of 33,265 acres, of which 24,719 acres is a wilderness area. The land was designated a national park in 1976 and its boundaries expanded in 2005.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the president of the United States the authority to, by presidential proclamation, create national monuments from federal lands to protect significant natural, historic, or scientific features. The Act has been used more than a hundred times since its enactment to create a wide variety of protected areas.
Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Macon, Georgia, United States preserves traces of over ten millennia of culture from the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Its chief remains are major earthworks built before 1000 CE by the South Appalachian Mississippian culture These include the Great Temple and other ceremonial mounds, a burial mound, and defensive trenches. They represented highly skilled engineering techniques and soil knowledge, and the organization of many laborers. The site has evidence of "12,000 years of continuous human habitation." The 3,336-acre (13.50 km2) park is located on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River. Macon, Georgia developed around the site after the United States built Fort Benjamin Hawkins nearby in 1806 to support trading with Native Americans.
A national recreation area (NRA) is a protected area in the United States established by an Act of Congress to preserve enhanced recreational opportunities in places with significant natural and scenic resources. There are 40 NRAs, which emphasize a variety of activities for visitors, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, swimming, biking, horseback riding, and wildlife viewing, in areas that include multiple-use management for both conservation and limited utilization of natural resources. They have diverse features and contexts, being established around reservoirs, in urban areas, and within forests. Due to their size, diversity of activities, and proximity to population centers, NRAs are among the most visited units of the National Park System, with six among the thirty most visited sites.
The National Historic Preservation Act is legislation intended to preserve historic and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landmarks, and the State Historic Preservation Offices.
Granada War Relocation Center, known to the internees as Camp Amache and later designated the Amache National Historic Site, was a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Prowers County, Colorado. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese Americans on the West Coast were rounded up and sent to remote camps.
The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor is a National Heritage Corridor dedicated to the history of the early American Industrial Revolution, including mill towns stretching across 25 cities and towns near the river's course in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and Providence County, Rhode Island. It makes up a historical area in the Blackstone Valley and is named for the late US Senator from Rhode Island John Chafee. In 2014, the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park was created out of a smaller portion of the National Heritage Corridor. The two units now exist as cooperative entities. The organization is headquartered at the building in Whitinsville, MA, which is located at 670 Linwood Ave, Whitinsville, MA 01588.
The National Park Foundation (NPF) is the official charity of the National Park Service (NPS) and its national park sites. The NPF was chartered by Congress in 1967 with a charge to "further the conservation of natural, scenic, historic, scientific, educational, inspirational, or recreational resources for future generations of Americans." The NPF raises private funds for the benefit of, or in connection with, the activities and services of the National Park Service.
Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area, Inc. (FFNHA) is a federally designated U.S. National Heritage Area located in eastern Kansas and Western Missouri. This heritage area preserves, conserves, and interprets historic and cultural landscapes pertaining to: the shaping of the frontier, the Missouri-Kansas Border War, and the enduring struggle for freedom. FFNHA was authorized on October 12, 2006, with the passage of the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006. The management plan for the heritage area was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 10, 2009, and undergoes official review by the National Park Service to ensure it complies with all components required within the enabling legislation.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 is a land management law passed in the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2009. The bill designates millions of acres in the US as protected and establishes a National Landscape Conservation System. It includes funding for programs, studies and other activities by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, and in some cases bars further geothermal leasing, oil and gas leasing, and new mining patents on certain stretches of protected land.
The Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 was an act passed in the 110th United States Congress and enacted on May 8, 2008.
The Champlain Valley National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area encompassing eleven counties in New York and Vermont surrounding Lake Champlain. The heritage area designation recognizes the area's historical and scenic significance. The region was a strategic corridor between the Hudson Valley of the United States and the Richelieu Valley of Quebec during the American Revolution in the late 18th century, and saw considerable military action during the War of 1812. During the American Civil War the valley was a part of the Underground Railroad network.
The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 is an omnibus lands act that protected public lands and modified management provisions. The bill designated more than 1,300,000 acres (5,300 km2) of wilderness area, expanded several national parks and other areas of the National Park System, and established four new national monuments while redesignating others. Other provisions included making the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent, protecting a number of rivers and historic sites, and withdrawing land near Yellowstone National Park and North Cascades National Park from mining.
World War II Heritage City is an honorary designation applied by National Park Service of the United States government to an American city or region in recognition of its contributions to the war effort of World War II and its continuing work to preserve its military history.
The Blackwell School was a segregrated school in Marfa, Texas, that served the city's Hispanic population from its construction in 1909 until the end of school segregation in 1965. On October 17, 2022, President Joe Biden signed legislation authorizing Blackwell School National Historic Site as a unit of the National Park Service; it was established on July 17, 2024, after the NPS acquired the property from the Marfa Independent School District. The site memorializes the history of supposedly "separate but equal" practices in Texas and elsewhere, as well as the role of education in Mexican American culture and the Marfa community.
