Top 7 National Parks of the World
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If you love nature and want to visit some of the best natural places in the world, national parks are the most suitable destinations for you.
National parks are one of the most stunning and iconic locations to visit in the world. They are often rich with rare plants and wildlife and offer unrivaled scientific, educational, and recreational opportunities. There are numerous beautiful national parks around the globe which tend to conserve the environment’s beauty but following is a list of the top 7 national parks in the world (in our opinion).
Wrangell-St Elias National Park & Preserve, Alaska
Home to a number of mountains, this national park was established in 1980. An interesting about this park is that it is bigger than entire Switzerland and homes more than 150 glaciers. Wrangell-St Elias National Park & Preserve is managed by the National Park Service in south-central Alaska and is open to tourism. The park has long spells of extremely cold winters and a rather short summer season. Nearly 66% of the total park area is dedicated to wildlife and unsurprisingly, the Wrangell-St Elias National Park is the largest designated wilderness in the entirety of the United States.
Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
The Mitre Peak, craggy mountains, tall waterfalls, and fjords carved by glaciers define this beautiful park in New Zealand’s South Island. Glacial erosion has left spectacular landforms in the area. Most famous among them are Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. This national park is the largest among the 14 national parks found in New Zealand. This national park is a paradise for anyone who likes long treks.
Yellowstone National Park, Montana
Peppered with colorful hot springs, mud pots, and breathtaking waterfalls, Yellowstone National Park is something out of this world. The park is known for its wildlife and some of its geothermal features, such as the Old Faithful geyser which can erupt up to 60 meters. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest lakes found at high elevation in North America. Moreover, this lake is over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent.
Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania
Located near the equator in Tanzania, the Kilimanjaro National Park is one of the best national parks in the world. The primary features of the park are Mount Kilimanjaro and the montane forest belt surrounding it. The Kilimanjaro tree hyrax, bushbuck, gray duiker, red duiker, cape buffaloes, elephants, black and white colobus, leopards, and blue monkeys are some of the animals found in this national park.
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
This list would not be complete without including one of the best national parks in existence. The park’s key feature, as its name suggests, is a massive gorge of the Colorado River called the Grand Canyon. The gorge, including its extensive system of tributary canyons, is known for its remarkable combination of size, depth, and exposed layers of colorful rocks. This national park is also designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Great Barrier Reef National Park, Australia
Considered one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, the planet’s largest coral reef system is also one of its most endangered. This is in large part due to accelerated coral bleaching caused by global warming, and an increase of tourists who are eager to see it while it’s still relatively healthy. The Great Barrier Reef is composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretched out across an area of around 133,000 square miles. This national park is also included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site program.
Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
One of the biggest and most visited Chilean national parks, the Torres del Paine National Park is famous for its marvelous natural beauty comprising of mountains, glaciers, lakes, and rivers. The park is one of the 11 protected areas of the Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica with about 51% of its total land being allocated for protected forests. The national park has a temperate climate of cold rain without a dry season. It is also famous for its avian diversity including 15 birds of prey like the Andean condor, Rufous-tailed hawk, Magellanic horned owl, austral pygmy-owl, and others. Unsurprisingly, the national park has over 252,000 visitors per year.
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