Which Canadian national park was established in 1885 as the country's first?

Banff National Park was established in 1885 as Canada’s first national park. It began as the Banff Hot Springs Reserve and was later expanded and formally named Rocky Mountains Park.

The original reserve protected the Cave and Basin hot springs near present-day Banff, Alberta. The federal government created it after competing claims arose over the springs and their commercial development. In 1887, the Rocky Mountains Park Act expanded the protected area, helping establish the foundation of Canada’s national park system.

Banff later became a major tourism destination after the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the Rocky Mountains. The park now protects more than 6,600 square kilometers of mountain landscapes, glaciers, forests, lakes, and wildlife habitat. A historical point often left out of simple trivia answers is that Indigenous peoples had long lived in and used the region, while early park policies restricted their access and displaced some communities.