Yellowstone National Park became the United States’ first national park in 1872.
President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on March 1, 1872. The law set aside the region as a public park, placing its scenery, geothermal features, and wildlife under federal protection rather than allowing unrestricted private development.
Yellowstone lies mainly in Wyoming, with smaller sections extending into Montana and Idaho. It is famous for features such as Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and one of the world’s largest concentrations of active geothermal features. Native peoples had used and traveled through the region for at least 11,000 years before the park was created.
Yellowstone is widely described as the world’s first national park, although the exact meaning of “national park” can vary when comparing earlier protected landscapes. Its creation helped inspire the national-park movement in other countries and eventually contributed to the establishment of the U.S. National Park Service in 1916.