There are nine national parks located in the state of
California managed by the
National Park Service. National parks protect significant scenic areas and nature reserves, provide educational programs, community service opportunities, and are an important part of conservation efforts in the United States. There are several other locations inside of California managed by the National Park Service, but carry other
designations such as National Monuments. Many of the national parks in California are also part of
national forests and
National Wildlife Refuges, and contain
Native American Heritage Sites and
National Monuments.
The Channel Islands National Park was established on March 5, 1980 and is located on five of the eight
Channel Islands off the coast of
California; all of the islands are located in
Santa Barbara County except Anacapa Island which is located in
Ventura County. The park covers a total area of almost 250,000 acres (1,000 km2).[1][2][3] The National Park Service works with various organizations to host educational, conservation, and scientific programs at the park.[4] The five islands which comprise the park are:[a][5]
Santa Cruz Island (
Spanish: Isla Santa Cruz,
Chumash: Limuw) is the largest island in California and largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands archipelago. It forms part of the northern group of the Channel Islands.[6] Santa Cruz is 22 miles (35 km) long and 2 to 6 miles (3 to 10 km) wide with an area of over 61,000 acres (250 km2).[7][8][9]
San Miguel Island (
Island Chumash: Tuqan) is the farthest west of the Channel Islands; it is the sixth-largest of the eight Channel Islands covering over 9,000 acres (3,600 ha), including offshore islands and rocks. Prince Island, 700 m (2,300 ft) off the northeastern coast, measures 35 acres (14 ha) in area. The island, at its farthest extent, is 8 miles (13 km) long and 3.7 miles (6.0 km) wide.[10][11]
Santa Rosa Island (
Chumash: Wi'ma) is the second largest of the Channel Islands covering over 53,000 acres (210 km2). Santa Rosa island is located about 26 miles (42 km) off the coast of
Santa Barbara, California. The terrain consists of rolling hills, canyons, and a coastal lagoon. The island's highest point is Vail Peak, at 1,589 feet (484 m).[12][13]
Anacapa Island is the smallest of the island chain and also the closest of the Channel Islands to the mainland. It is 9 miles (14 km) across the Santa Barbara Channel to the nearest point on the mainland and lies southwest of the city of
Ventura, California.[14] It is the only one of the Channel Islands to have a non-
Spanish-derived name; Anacapa comes from the
Chumash word "Anyapax", meaning "illusion".[15]Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed by the island in 1542;
George Vancouver labeled the island "Enecapa" on a 1790 chart; the
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey labeled the island "Anacapa" in 1854.[16] Anacapa Island is home to the
Anacapa Island Lighthouse a national historic site.[17][18]
Santa Barbara Island is located about 38 miles (61 km) from the
Palos Verdes Peninsula. With a total area of about 640 acres (2.6 km2), it is the smallest of the eight Channel Islands and is the southernmost island in the chain. The highest point on the island is Signal Hill, at 634 ft (193 m). The island was named by Spanish explorer
Sebastián Vizcaíno, who sighted the island on 4 December 1602, the
feast day dedicated to
Saint Barbara.[19]
The islands are home to an array of significant natural resources and cultural sites; all of the islands contain national archeological districts except Santa Rosa Island. In 1976 all eight of the islands became a biosphere reserve as part of the
Man and the Biosphere Programme under
UNESCO.[20][2]
The
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary is a protected area established May 5, 1980 encompassing the waters from mean high tide to 6 nautical miles (11 km) around Channel Islands National Park, covering an area of approximately 1,470 square miles (3,800 km2). The
National Marine Sanctuary program is part of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and conducts educational programs, oversees conservation efforts, scientific research, and national resource stewardship. The sanctuary protects a wide range of marine species and more than 150 historic shipwrecks.[21][22]
Death Valley National Park straddles the
California–
Nevada border, east of the
Sierra Nevada range. The park contains
Death Valley, the northern section of
Panamint Valley, the southern section of
Eureka Valley, and most of
Saline Valley.[27] The Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933; the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.[28] The park protects over 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2).[29]
Despite its name, Death Valley National Park is home to a wide variety of plants and animals in its diverse
ecosystem and
microecosystems.[34] The Death Valley pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus), also known as Salt Creek pupfish, is a small species of fish found only in Death Valley National Park; the pupfish is
endemic to two small, isolated locations and is currently classified as an
endangered species.[35][36][37]
The Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park adjoin each other and are administered together by the National Park Service as Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.[47]
The park consists of two main areas:
General Grant Grove, home of the
General Grant tree and Cedar Grove. The park's namesake, Kings Canyon, is a rugged
glacier-carved valley more than a mile (1,600 m) deep. Other natural features include multiple 14,000-foot (4,300 m) peaks, high mountain meadows, swift-flowing rivers, and some of the world's largest stands of
giant sequoia trees. The canyon is drained by the
Middle and
South Forks of the
Kings River. Kings Canyon is home to over 60 recreational trails; combined the
Pacific Crest Trail[c] and the
John Muir Trail[d] traverse the entire length of the park, from north to south.[53][54][55]
Sequoia National Park is in the southern Sierra Nevada, northeast of
Bakersfield, California. Because the parks are adjacent to each other, Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park are administered together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks by the National Park Service;.[47] In 1976,
UNESCO designated the park as the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve.
The park was established on September 25, 1890 to protect over 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of mountainous forest wilderness and became a national park at the same time the National Park Service was founded on August 25, 1916;[56] today the park protects 629 square miles (1,630 km2). The park's giant sequoia forests are part of 202,430 acres (819.2 km2) of old-growth forests protected by Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The park is home to the highest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney (14,505 feet (4,421 m)). Approximately 85 percent of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is a wilderness area inaccessible by road. The majority of the national park was designated as part of the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness area in 1984 and the southwest portion of the park was protected as the
John Krebs Wilderness in 2009.[b][57][58]
The park is known for the
giant sequoia trees it is named after, including the
General Sherman tree, by volume the largest tree on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in an area of the park called the
Giant Forest, which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world. The Giant Forest is connected by the
Generals Highway to
General Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National park, home of the
General Grant tree which is one of the other largest giant sequoias in existence.[59]
Lassen Volcanic National Park is located in
Lassen County in northeastern California and is known for its numerous volcanoes.[60] The namesake feature of the park is
Lassen Peak, the largest
plug domevolcano in the world and the southernmost volcano in the
Cascade Range.[61] The park is one of the few areas in the world where all four types of volcano can be found: plug dome,
shield,
cinder cone, and
stratovolcano. From May 1914 until 1917, a series of eruptions occurred on Lassen.[62][63][64]
Lassen Volcanic National Park began in 1907 as two separate
national monuments: Cinder Cone National Monument and Lassen Peak National Monument.[65] Because of the recent volcanic activity and the area's scenery, Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone, and the area surrounding were established as a National Park on August 9, 1916.[66][67][68] The park currently protects over 166 square miles (430 km2).[64]
Pinnacles National Park is a mountainous area located east of the
Salinas Valley in
Central California. The park is approximately 40 miles (64 km) inland from the
Pacific Ocean and approximately 80 miles (130 km) south of the
San Francisco Bay Area. The park is in the southern portion of the
Gabilan Range, part of California's
Coast Ranges. Pinnacles is the ninth location in California to become part of the National Park System. In 1975 the park occupied over 16,000 acres (65 km2), increasing to the present size of over 26,000 acres (110 km2) through expansions including the 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) Pinnacles Ranch and Bacon Ranch,[70] and the Clinton administration's Proclamation 7266 which increased the size of the park by 7,900 acres (32 km2) to protect more caves. The elevation in the park ranges from 824 to 3,304 feet (251 to 1,007 m) at the peak of
North Chalone Peak.[71][72][73] The park is also home to
Pinnacles National Monument, an area of spirelike rock formations in the Gabilan Range area.[74]
The park's is named for the
eroded rocky spires which are the remnants of an ancient volcanic field. The majority of the park is also protected as a
national wilderness. The park is divided by rock formations into eastern and western areas, connected by hiking trails. The rock formations provide for extensive views that attract
rock climbing enthusiasts.[75] The park features
talus caves which are home to at least thirteen different species of bats;[76] the park is an excellent habitat for
prairie falcons, and is a protected release site for
California condors hatched in captivity.[77][78]
Pinnacles was established under the
Antiquities Act as a
national monument in 1908 by President
Theodore Roosevelt,[73] and was redesignated as a national park by Congressional legislation in 2012 that was signed into law by President
Barack Obama on January 10, 2013.[79] The legislation designates the Pinnacles Wilderness as the Hain Wilderness in commemoration of Schuyler Hain's efforts to establish the national monument.[80][81][78]
The Redwood National and State Parks are a network of three state and one national park located along the coast of northern
California within
Del Norte and
Humboldt Counties. The
National Park Service and the
California Department of Parks and Recreation administratively merged responsibility Redwood National Park with the three abutting Redwood State Parks in 1994 to streamline administration, forest management and resource stabilization.[82][83]
In 1850,
old-growth redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km2) of the California coast. Today the parks protect the remaining Redwood forest area, a combined 139,000 acres (560 km2) area of
old-growthtemperate rainforests. The four parks protect almost half of all remaining
coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) old-growth forests, totaling an area of over 38,000 acres (150 km2) with 37 miles (60 km) of natural coastline.
Coastal redwoods are among the tallest, oldest, and most massive tree species on Earth.[88]
After decades of unrestricted
logging, efforts toward conservation of the Redwood forest started. The work of the
Save the Redwoods League, founded in 1918 to protect the remaining old-growth redwoods, resulted in the creation of the several state parks. Efforts by the Save the Redwoods League, the
Sierra Club, and the
National Geographic Society to create a national park began in the early 1960s and Redwood National Park was created in 1968. The parks are currently managed jointly by the California Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park Service.[89][90][91]
Yosemite National Park is located in central California in the western Sierra Nevada; the park borders the Sierra National Forest to the southeast and Stanislaus National Forest to the northwest and extends Tuolumne, Mono, Madera, and Mariposa counties. Three wilderness areas adjoin the park: the
Ansel Adams Wilderness to the southeast, the
Hoover Wilderness to the northeast, and the
Emigrant Wilderness to the north. The park protects an area of almost 750,000 acres (3,000 km2); The elevation of the park ranges from 2,127 feet (648 m) to 13,114 feet (3,997 m).[97][98] The name "Yosemite" means "killer" in
Miwok, and originally referred a tribe that was forced out of the area by the
Mariposa Battalion. Previously, the area had been called "Ahwahnee" ("big mouth") by indigenous people. The indigenous tribe that lived in the Valley were called Yosemites by other tribes because they were formed of renegades from the
Paiutes. The term "Yosemite" in Miwok is easily confusable with a similar term for "grizzly bear".[99][100]
Almost the entire park is designated as a wilderness area;[101] the park contains multiple ecosystems such as chaparral and oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone, and alpine and protects a wide biological diversity of flora and fauna native to California and the Sierra Nevada. Yosemite is one of twenty–four
World Heritage Sites in the United States.[102]
Yosemite was at the heart of the development of the national park system.
Galen Clark worked together with other conservationists to protect Yosemite Valley from development; this ultimately lead President
Abraham Lincoln to sign the Yosemite Grant Act in 1864. The movement to have Congress declare Yosemite a national park began soon after the grant and the valley and surrounding mountains and wilderness became a national park in 1890.[103]
The National Park Service (NPS) is the
agency of the
United States Government that manages all
national parks, many
national monuments, and other historical properties with various designations. The agency was created on August 25, 1916 through the
National Park Service Organic Act. The National Park Service is a part of the
Department of the Interior. The agency is charged with both preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management and also making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment.[104][105][106]
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^The Pacific Crest trail passes through 25 national forests and 7 national parks.
^The John Muir trail passes through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.
^The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 (16 U.S.C. §§ 410aaa through 410aaa-83, October 31, 1994): The Act establishes the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve.
^Rick, Torben C.; Erlandson, Jon M.; Vellanoweth, René L.; Braje, Todd J. (2005). "From Pleistocene Mariners to Complex Hunter-Gatherers: The Archaeology of the California Channel Islands". Journal of World Prehistory. 19 (3): 169–228.
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^Dilsaver, L. M.; Tweed, W. C. (1990). "Chapter 5: Selling Sequoia: The Early Park Service Years (1916-1931)". Challenge of the Big Trees. National Park Service.
^An Act to designate certain lands within units of the national park system as wilderness; to revise the boundaries of certain of those units, and for other purposes.
Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States)94–567,
H.R. 13160, 90
Stat.2692, enacted October 20, 1976
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