NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens. Learn more about individual images here.

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”
― John Muir, Our National Parks

Happy Birthday to the U.S. National Park Service! A century after President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill that established the National Park Service, there are now 420 national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical sites, lake shores, seashores, recreation areas, and scenic rivers and trails. Interestingly, the first National Park—Yellowstone—was established in 1872, well before the park service.

For more on the long and fascinating history of the parks, see these stories from PBS, USA Today, and the National Park Service. You can also tour some of the parks from space by viewing this image gallery compiled by NASA Earth Observatory. Many of the images were captured by sensors on Landsat satellites.

Also, stay tuned to that image gallery page. We will continue to add images throughout the week and for the rest of the year. Follow the links to read more quotes about the park system and wilderness. And if you want to see even more imagery of national parks from space, check out this gallery of astronauts photographs of some of the more famous parks.

“Laws change; people die; the land remains.”
― Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

NASA Earth Observatory map by Joshua Stevens, using data from the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2016 at 2:48 pm and is filed under National Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.