Yellowstone
First national park in the world, established in 1872.
Last updated
Frank Schulenburg · CC BY-SA 4.0
Where it is
Coordinates: 44°36′00″N 110°30′00″W (44.6000, -110.5000) · Open in OpenStreetMap
Coordinates and connected clubs: the infobox of Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map: drawn by Codexery from OpenStreetMap tiles.
Located mostly in Wyoming's northwest corner, with smaller sections in Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone is a U.S. national park.[1][2] On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, which the 42nd U.S. Congress had passed, making it the world's first national park.[3][2] Old Faithful geyser and the park's diverse wildlife and geothermal features are major attractions.[1]
Last updated 2026-10-04 from the source article.
Geography and history
The Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition in 1870 discovered Old Faithful geyser.[4] Covering 3468.4 square miles, Yellowstone contains Yellowstone Lake, one of North America's largest high-elevation lakes.[5][2] The dormant Yellowstone Caldera has produced two extremely powerful eruptions over the past two million years.[6] For a minimum of 11,000 years, Native American peoples have inhabited the Yellowstone region.[7]
Three privately funded explorers conducted the first thorough survey of the Yellowstone area in 1869, known as the Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition.[8] The U.S. Congress was persuaded by that report to remove the region from public auction.[9] From 1886 through 1916, the U.S. Army managed Yellowstone for three decades.[10] In 1917, the National Park Service assumed administrative control of the park.[10]
What the cited sources add
The National Park Service states that Yellowstone Lake has a maximum depth of 430 ft and 141 miles of shoreline.[2] The same source notes that the park contains more than 500 active geysers, over half the world's total.[2] The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory records that three extraordinarily large explosive eruptions in the past 2.1 million years each created a giant caldera.[11] The Huckleberry Ridge Tuff eruption 2.1 million years ago ejected 2,450 km³ of material.[11]
Large volume rhyolitic lava flows were erupted in the caldera between 180,000 and 70,000 years ago.[11] The Yellowstone caldera was formed by the Lava Creek Tuff eruption 0.640 million years ago.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Park Facts", National Park Service, December 22, 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "Park Facts", National Park Service, December 22, 2015. facts only, no text reused. nps.gov
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Yellowstone, the First National Park", Library of Congress; "An Act to set apart a certain tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a Public Park", Library of Congress; "U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 17, Chap. 24, pp. 32–33. "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park." [S. 392]"; "Act Establishing Yellowstone National Park (1872)", National Archives, September 8, 2021; "Biosphere Reserve Information – United States – Yellowstone", en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Langford, "The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870", Frank Jay Haynes, 1905 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Park Facts", National Park Service, December 22, 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Questions About Yellowstone Volcanic History", United States Geological Survey, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory; Bryan, "The Geysers of Yellowstone", University Press of Colorado, 2008, p. 9; Johnson, "Detecting geyser activity with infrasound", Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, April 2013, p. 105–117; "Yellowstone National Park", Encyclopædia Britannica (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Yellowstone, History and Culture", National Park Service (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Haines, "The Folsom Party (1869)", Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment, 1974 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition", U of Nebraska Press, 2003, p. 210–211; Chittenden, "The Yellowstone National Park-Historical and Descriptive", Stewart and Kidd Co, 1915, p. 77–78; "U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 17, Chap. 24, pp. 32–33. "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park." [S. 392]" (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yellowstone National Park" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "eRecords of the National Park Service [NPS]", National Archives (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Summary of Yellowstone Eruption History", Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. facts only, no text reused. usgs.gov
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Yellowstone National Park (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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