Yellowstone National Park Facts: Basic Geography

Here are some Yellowstone National Park Facts. Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872.

Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South-Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 sq mi (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years.

Well over half of the world’s geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yellowstone National Park Facts: Basic History

While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano.

However, the U.S. Army was eventually commissioned to oversee the management of Yellowstone for 30 years between 1886 and 1916. In 1917, the administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than a thousand archaeological sites.

Yellowstone National Park Facts: Animal Kingdom

Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park.

The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one-third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobiles.

Additional Yellowstone National Park Facts

1. The park is so big that it sprawls into three U.S. states.
   Encompassing a whopping 3,472 square miles, Yellowstone National Park spans three states — Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana — though it’s mostly in the former. The park is also larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

2. Yellowstone became a national park almost 20 years before Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana became official U.S. states.
   Yellowstone officially became a national park 18 years before Wyoming or Idaho — and 17 years before Montana — were granted statehood.
3. It got its name from Native Americans, who were referring to the yellow sandstone along the Yellowstone River.
   People tend to assume that Yellowstone got its name from the vivid yellow colors seen in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. As it turns out, however, the park’s moniker stems from the sandstone along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana (which is actually several hundred miles downstream and northeast of the park).
4. In the park’s early days, visitors came to watch bears eat garbage.
   At Yellowstone’s nightly “bear shows,” which ran from about 1890 till World War II, visitors would come and watch black and grizzly bears eat the park’s garbage. They even built bleachers for the event.
5. The park is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states.
   It’s estimated that 67 different mammals (in addition to 300 bird species and 16 types of fish) live in the park. That includes mammals like grizzly bears, bison, wolves, elk, and moose.
6. Yellowstone is the only place in the U.S. where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times.
   Bison are one of the park’s biggest draws — especially when they congregate on the roads, causing “bison jams.” The herds in Yellowstone are special, as they’ve lived in the park continuously since prehistoric times.
7. The park is situated over a supervolcano that is capable of a magnitude 8 eruption.
   In fact, the supervolcano has had three massive eruptions — the first occurring some 2.1 million years ago. While the volcano remains active today, geologists are constantly monitoring it.
8. Magma is estimated to be a mere three miles below parts of the park.
   Molten rock below the Earth’s crust (known as magma) is estimated to be just three to eight miles beneath Sour Creek Dome and eight to 12 miles beneath Mallard Lake Dome.
9. Yellowstone is home to half of the world’s hydrothermal features — from hot springs to geysers.
   According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the park is tasked with preserving more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, including hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, mudpots, and travertine terraces.
10. The vibrant colors you see in the park come from trillions of microorganisms called thermophiles.
    These microorganisms, which love the heat and are impossible to see with the naked eye, come together to create vibrant mats of color that give thermal features like hot springs and geysers their bright look.

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