This year marks a century of the National Park Service.
The organization, founded in 1916 with 14 national parks and 21 national monuments, works to preserve lands throughout the country. In addition to the national parks, the service also designates monuments, preserves, reserves, lakeshores, seashores, national rivers, wild and scenic riverways, national scenic trails, historic sites, military parks, memorials, recreation areas parkways and more.
Over the past 100 years, the service has worked to bring U.S. citizens closer to nature. In commemoration of this centennial, the Times has gathered everything you need to know about the organization, by the numbers.
59: Number of national parks throughout the United States.
27: Number of states that feature national parks.
0: Number of national parks in Maryland.
9: Number of parks in California, the greatest number of any state. Alaska has eight, Utah has five and Colorado has four.
412: Number of National Park Service areas, including 29 in Maryland. Though Carroll County is not home to any Maryland National Park Service areas, the state is home to Antietam National Battlefield, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, Assateague Island National Seashore, Baltimore National Heritage Area, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, Catoctin Mountain Park, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network, Civil War Defenses of Washington, Clara Barton National Historic Site, Fort Foote, Fort McHenry, Fort Washington, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Glen Echo Park, Greenbelt Park, Hampton National Historic Site, Harmony Hall, Harpers Ferry, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad, Monocacy National Battlefield, Oxon Cove Park and Oxon Hill Farm, Piscataway Park, the Potomac Heritage and Star-Spangled Banner trails, Thomas Stone National Historic Site and Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail.
22,000: Number of permanent, temporary and seasonal employees in the National Park Service.
221,000: Number of volunteers throughout the park service.
307,247,252: Total number of recreational visitors to the national parks in 2015.
120,690: Number of recreational visits to the National Park Service areas in 1904, the earliest recorded year. (While the NPS wasn't created until 1916, many of the parks had already been in existence for years.) From 1904 to 2015, 13,256,763,256 visits have been made to the various national parks areas.
15,054,603: Number of visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the most visited place on the national park system. The parkway is followed by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The Great Smokey Mountains National Park is the most visited national park.
1872: The Yellowstone National Park Act is signed, establishing the first national park out of 2 million acres in Montana and Wyoming. Following the signing of the act, the land of Yellowstone National Park was designated as a public park for the use of the public. In addition to its usage as a public park, the act marked the land for preservation, as the secretary of the interior was placed in control of all natural resources within the park.
1916: The year the National Park Service was created. On Aug. 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act to establish the National Park Service, designating 14 national parks and 21 national monuments.
1956: Mission 66 is undertaken. This 10-year program would see more than $1 billion invested in National Park Service infrastructure.
1,560 acres: Amount of land transferred from the National Park Service to local parks and recreation organizations over the past 68 years.
421: Number of threatened and endangered species found in national park units. At least one endangered species is found in 204 national park service units, making up 1,112 populations. The Natchez Trace Parkway is home to 45 endangered, experimental and threatened species, the most of any park unit. The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is home to 42, while the Golden Gate National Recreation Area is home to 36.
872 square feet: Size of Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania, the smallest national park site.
13.2 million acres: The area of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, the largest national park site.
$2.98 billion: National Park Service budget for fiscal year 2014.
600: Number of National Park Service employees who aided in the cleanup efforts following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Employees came from 120 different parks.
1: National park areas set aside for the performing arts, Wolf Trap in Virginia.
To locate National Park Service areas throughout the country, visit www.nps.govhttp://www.nps.gov.
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