National Park Service
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The National Park Service (NPS) is the United States federal agency that manages all National Parks, many National Monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916 by an act of Congress in order to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." It is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, which is in turn an arm of the executive branch. The NPS oversees 390 units, of which 58 are designated national parks. Other units are designated national monuments, historical parks, national memorials, historic trails, outdoor recreation areas, wild and scenic rivers, lakeshores, seashores, and battlefields. Not all NPS properties are considered to be distinct units. For example, Ellis Island National Monument is not an NPS unit; it is a dependent area of Statue of Liberty National Monument which is one of the 390 units.
The U.S. Park Police is a distinct law enforcement division of the National Park Service, with jurisdiction in all NPS sites, but primarily utilized in large metropolitan areas as law enforcement services in rural, wilderness, and even some urban units are provided by National Park Rangers. Other special NPS divisions include the Historic American Buildings Survey and the National Historic Landmarks Program.
The National Park System is a term that describes the physical collection of parks and sites managed by the National Park Service. The system encompasses approximately 84.4 million acres (338,000 km²), of which more than 4.3 million acres (17,000 km²) remain in private ownership. The largest park is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At 13,200,000 acres (53,000 km²) it is over 16 percent of the entire system. The smallest unit in the system is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, Pennsylvania, at 0.02 acre (80 m²).
In addition to "units" and other properties that the National Park Service either owns or administers, it also provides technical and financial assistance to several "affiliated areas" authorized by Congress. The largest affiliated area is New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve at 1,164,025 acres (4711 km²). The smallest is Benjamin Franklin National Memorial at 0.00 acre.
See also
- List of areas in the National Park System of the United States
- U.S. National Monument
- U.S. National Park
- National park passport stamps
- Ansel Franklin Hall the first Chief Naturalist and first Chief Forester of the National Park Servicede:National Park Service
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