page_title: National park
section_title: Definitions
hierarchical_section_title: National park / Definitions
caption_attribution_description: Español: Una vista panorámica del área de Puerto Escondido en el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
context_page_description: A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of 'wild nature' for posterity and as a symbol of national pride.
  An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined "National Park" as its Category II type of protected areas. According to the IUCN, 6,555 national parks worldwide met its criteria in 2006. IUCN is still discussing the parameters of defining a national park.
  While this type of national park had been proposed previously, the United States established the first "public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people", Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world.
context_section_description: In 1969, the IUCN declared a national park to be a relatively large area with the following defining characteristics:
  One or several ecosystems not materially altered by human exploitation and occupation, where plant and animal species, geomorphological sites and habitats are of special scientific, educational, and recreational interest or which contain a natural landscape of great beauty;
  Highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or eliminate exploitation or occupation as soon as possible in the whole area and to effectively enforce the respect of ecological, geomorphological, or aesthetic features which have led to its establishment; and
  Visitors are allowed to enter, under special conditions, for inspirational, educative, cultural, and recreative purposes.
  In 1971, these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to evaluate a national park. These include:
  Minimum size of 1,000 hectares within zones in which protection of nature takes precedence
  Statutory legal protection
  Budget and staff sufficient to provide sufficient effective protection
  Prohibition of exploitation of natural resources (including the development of dams) qualified by such activities as sport, hunting, fishing, the need for management, facilities, etc.
  While the term national park is now defined by the IUCN, many protected areas in many countries are called national park even when they correspond to other categories of the IUCN Protected Area Management Definition, for example:
  Swiss National Park, Switzerland: IUCN Ia – Strict Nature Reserve
  Everglades National Park, United States: IUCN Ib – Wilderness Area
  Koli National Park, Finland: IUCN II – Surface Area
  Victoria Falls National Park, Zimbabwe: IUCN III – National Monument
  Vitosha National Park, Bulgaria: IUCN IV – Habitat Management Area
  New Forest National Park, United Kingdom: IUCN V – Protected Landscape
  Etniko Ygrotopiko Parko Delta Evrou, Greece: IUCN VI – Managed Resource Protected Area
  While national parks are generally understood to be administered by national governments (hence the name), in Australia national parks are run by state governments and predate the Federation of Australia; similarly, national parks in the Netherlands are administered by the provinces. In Canada, there are both national parks operated by the federal government and provincial or territorial parks operated by the provincial and territorial governments, although nearly all are still national parks by the IUCN definition.
  In many countries, including Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, national parks do not adhere to the IUCN definition, while some areas which adhere to the IUCN definition are not designated as national parks.
caption: Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica was listed by Forbes as one of the world's 12 most beautiful national parks.[11]
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