Which U.S. national park was established by Congress as the first of its kind in 1872?

Yellowstone National Park was established as the first U.S. national park in 1872.

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on March 1, 1872. The law reserved a large area around Yellowstone’s geothermal features, lakes, canyons, and wildlife for public benefit and prohibited private settlement. It is widely regarded as the beginning of the modern national-park idea.

Yellowstone lies mainly in northwestern Wyoming, with smaller sections in Montana and Idaho. Its landscape sits over a volcanic hotspot, producing famous features such as Old Faithful, the Grand Prismatic Spring, and the Yellowstone Caldera.

The park was not an untouched wilderness when it was created. Native peoples had lived in and traveled through the region for thousands of years, and Indigenous communities continued to have connections to the landscape after federal protection was established. Yellowstone later helped inspire protected-area systems around the world and became part of the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation region.