Chris Allen Zurheide, age 11, of St. Louis, Mo., for his question:
HOW MANY NATIONAL PARKS ARE THERE?
First national park in the world was Yellowstone National Park which was established by the United States government in 1872. Today the National Park System is made up of about 48,500 square miles. It's an area larger than the entire state of Pennsylvania. Every state, with the lone exception of Delaware, has at least one national parkland.
Three types of areas are found within the National Park System: natural, historic and recreational. Almost 300 different locations are included in the system. A total of 37 national parks are included in the network. They cover a mammoth total of 15.6 million acres of land.
Within the National Park System are 51 national historic sites, 87 national monuments, 16 national recreation areas, 10 national seashores, 22 national memorials and 16 national historical parks.
Within separate park divisions are a number of important Washington, D.C., locations including the White House, the Capital parks, the National Mall and the National Visitor Center.
National monuments include the Statue of Liberty, ancient Indian pueblos and many forts dating from colonial or revolutionary times. Among the historic areas are the birthplaces of such distinguished Americans as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
The National Park System is managed by the National Park Service, a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The director of the service names a superintendent to manage each individual area or a group of areas that are close together. Park rangers are then used to patrol the parklands and to protect them from fire and other dangers. They also provide a number of valuable services for the millions of visitors each year.
Largest national area in the system is Glacier Bay National Monument. It is more than twice as large as the state of Delaware. It covers almost 3 million acres in Alaska. Yellowstone National Park, which borders Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, is the nation's largest National Park. Other large parks include Everglades in Florida, Glacier in Montana, Grand Canyon in Arizona, Mount McKinley in Alaska, Olympic in Washington and Yosemite in California. Among the most popular parks are Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Crater Lake in Oregon, Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, Hot Springs in Arkansas and Zion in Utah.
In addition to Yosemite, California has five additional National Parks including Kings Canyon, Lassen, Volcanic, Redwood and Sequoia. Utah has four in addition to Zion: Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef. Other popular National Parks include Isle Royale in Michigan, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain in Colorado, Shenandoah in Virginia and Wind Cave in South Dakota.