Explore Yellowstone: The World’s First National Park

Yellowstone National Park is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. To this day, Yellowstone remains one of the country's most popular national parks with almost four million annual visitors. Yellowstone spans almost 3,500 miles, and extends into parts of Montana and Idaho, making it the largest National Park in the US.

Yellowstone National Park preserves the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mudpots, fumaroles, and travertine terraces on Earth. More than 10,000 hydrothermal features are found here, of which more than 300 are geysers.

The Grand Geyser, the largest predictable geyser in Yellowstone. Its height is about 150 to 180 feet and its duration is about 9-12 minutes. It will sometimes stop after about 8 to 9 minutes and then restart after a minute or so.

Yellowstone is the only place in the United States where bison (Bison bison) have lived continuously since prehistoric times. For their size, bison are agile and quick, capable of speeds in excess of 30 mph. Each year, bison injure park visitors who approach too closely. So, here the motor vehicles must give way the road for this animal before being moved.

Yellowstone was established as the world's first national park in 1872. The human history of the Yellowstone region goes back more than 11,000 years. The stories of people in Yellowstone are preserved in objects that convey information about past human activities in the region, and in people’s connections to the land that provide a sense of place or identity.

The volcano at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana sits atop a huge reserve of molten rock and last erupted 640,000 years ago. The Yellowstone eruption area collapsed upon itself, creating a sunken giant crater or caldera 1,500 square miles in area. The magmatic heat powering that eruption (and two others, dating back 2.1 million years).

Yellowstone National Park in the northwest United States is home to a large variety of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians, many of which migrate within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Visitors are likely to see a number of animals in Yellowstone freely roaming the landscape, from Yellowstone’s two types of bears – grizzlies and black bears – to gray wolves (which were once almost extinct in the area), bison (one of the most prevalent species in the park), wild horses, eagles, trumpeter swans and many more.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the first large canyon on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It is the most breathtaking sight inside Yellowstone Park. Twenty miles long, the canyon is up to 4,000-feet wide and 1,200-feet deep in places.