U.S. National Park Service
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The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior. As of December 2015, the service oversaw 409 sites within the National Park System. The agency assists in managing national historic areas, wild and scenic rivers, historic landmarks, and national trails.[1]
Background
As of December 2015, the National Park System contained more than 84 million acres at 409 sites, including national parks, historical parks and sites, national monuments, battlefields and military parks, recreation areas, seashores, and parkways. The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska was the largest park in the country as of December 2015 and totaled 13.2 million acres. The Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial was the smallest site as of December 2015 at 0.02 acres. Around 280 million visitors attended sites in the National Park System in 2014. As of December 2015, the National Park Service employed over 20,000 permanent, temporary, and seasonal employees.[1]
History
On March 1, 1872, Congress established Yellowstone National Park as the first national park, going on to establish Sequoia, Yosemite and General Grant National Parks in 1890. In August 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park Service (NPS). The NPS' purpose is "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." The service began managing military parks and national monuments in the 1930s. In the 1960s, the National Park Service added Alaska's 47 million acres to the National Park System, roughly doubling the size of the system.[1][2]
Maintenance backlog
- See also: Federal land policy
According to the Congressional Research Service, the four major federal land management agencies face deferred maintenance costs, which are also known as a maintenance backlog. This backlog includes land and/or infrastructure maintenance that was not done when scheduled and thus was deferred to an unknown future period. Recreation sites, buildings, roads and trails are the most common infrastructures in need of maintenance. The total amount of federal funding provided for the maintenance backlog each year is unknown because the funding is not identified in either presidential budget requests or congressional appropriations documents. The National Park Service's total maintenance backlog was between $9.12 billion and $13.42 billion as of 2013.[3]
National Park System
The table shows the number and type of National Park Service areas within the National Park System. There were 80 national monuments, 78 national historic sites, 59 national parks and 50 national historical parks as of December 2015.[4]
| National Park System units | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit type | Total designations | |||||
| National battlefields | 11 | |||||
| National battlefield parks | 4 | |||||
| National battlefield Site | 1 | |||||
| National military parks | 9 | |||||
| National historical parks | 50 | |||||
| National historic sites | 78 | |||||
| International historic sites | 1 | |||||
| National lakeshores | 4 | |||||
| National memorials | 30 | |||||
| National monuments | 80 | |||||
| National parks | 59 | |||||
| National parkways | 4 | |||||
| National preserves | 19 | |||||
| National reserves | 2 | |||||
| National recreation areas | 18 | |||||
| National rivers | 5 | |||||
| National wild and scenic rivers and riverways | 10 | |||||
| National scenic trails | 3 | |||||
| National seashores | 10 | |||||
| Other designations | 11 | |||||
| Total | 409 | |||||
| Source: U.S. National Park Service, "National Park System" | ||||||
The table below shows the 10 most visited sites in the National Park System in 2014. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area was the most visited park in 2014 with over 15 million visitors, followed by Blue Ridge Parkway (13.9 million visitors), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (10.09 million visitors), and George Washington Memorial Parkway (7.4 million visitors).[5]
| 10 most visited sites in the National Park System (2014) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Site | Location | Visits |
| Golden Gate National Recreation Area | California | 15,004,420 |
| Blue Ridge Parkway | Virginia | 13,941,749 |
| Great Smoky Mountains National Park | North Carolina and Tennessee | 10,099,276 |
| George Washington Memorial Parkway | Virginia and Washington, D.C. | 7,472,150 |
| Lincoln Memorial | Washington, D.C. | 7,139,072 |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area | Arizona | 6,942,873 |
| Gateway National Recreation Area | New Jersey | 6,021,713 |
| Natchez Trace Parkway | Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee | 5,846,474 |
| Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park | Maryland | 5,066,219 |
| Grand Canyon National Park | Arizona | 4,756,771 |
| Source: U.S. National Park Service, "10 Most Visited Places of the National Park System (2014)" | ||
Endangered species
As of February 2011, there were 11 National Park Service units with endangered and threatened species. The table below shows the park, park location, and the number of endangered and threatened species in the park.[6]
| Park units with the most endangered species (as of February 2011) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site | Location | Endangered | Threatened | Total |
| Natchez Trace Parkway | Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee | 34 | 10 | 44 |
| Hawaii Volcanoes National Park | Hawaii | 38 | 4 | 42 |
| Golden Gate National Recreation Area | California | 24 | 12 | 36 |
| Haleakala National Park | Hawaii | 34 | 2 | 36 |
| Channel Islands National Park | California | 22 | 5 | 27 |
| Point Reyes National Seashore | California | 15 | 11 | 26 |
| Everglades National Park | Florida | 14 | 7 | 21 |
| Redwood National and State Parks | California | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Canaveral National Seashore | Florida | 13 | 6 | 19 |
| Kalaupapa National Historic Park | Hawaii | 15 | 0 | 15 |
| Biscayne National Park | Florida | 11 | 7 | 18 |
| Total | 230 | 74 | 304 | |
| Source: U.S. National Park Service, "Park Units with Highest Number of Endangered Species" | ||||
Budget
The table below shows the National Park Service's annual appropriations in fiscal years 2014 and 2015 (in thousands). The National Park Service's budget was $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2015, an increase of 1.4 percent from the service's fiscal year 2014 budget.[7]
| National Park Service appropriations for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 ($ in thousands) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2015 | Percent difference | ||||
| $2,577,067 | $2,614,789 | 1.46% | ||||
| Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, "National Park Service Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Justifications" | ||||||
Structure
Organization
The National Park Service is headed by a director along with two deputy directors. Below is the agency's organizational chart (accessed in December 2015).[8]
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 U.S. National Park Service, "National Park Service Overview," July 13, 2015
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, "National Park Service Timeline," accessed December 21, 2015
- ↑ U.S. Congressional Research Service, "Federal Lands and Natural Resources: Overview and Selected Issues for the 113th Congress," December 8, 2014
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, "National Park System," accessed December 22, 2015
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, "10 Most Visited Places of the National Park System (2014)," accessed December 22, 2015
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, "Park Units with Highest Number of Endangered Species," accessed December 22, 2015
- ↑ U.S. Department of the Interior, "National Park Service Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Justifications," accessed December 21, 2015
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, "National Park Service Headquarters Organization," accessed December 22, 2015
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