Which US national park was established first?

Which US national park was established first? Yellowstone National Park was established first, on March 1, 1872.

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act after an 1871 government-sponsored survey documented the region’s geysers, hot springs, waterfalls, lakes, and dramatic landscapes. The law set Yellowstone aside as a public park for people’s enjoyment rather than allowing the land to be sold or privately developed.

Yellowstone is widely recognized as the world’s first national park, as well as the first in the United States. It occupies parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, although most of its area lies in Wyoming. The National Park Service did not yet exist when Yellowstone was created; the US Army helped administer and protect it from 1886 until the park service took over in 1917.

A common mix-up is Yosemite, which became a national park in 1890, and Sequoia, established the same year. The Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Canyon came later.