World Heritage Sites & Parks in the United States
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Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Its vastness is stunning, and the evidence it reveals about the earth's history is invaluable. About 65 million years ago in the earth's shifting, a huge area of land was lifted a mile and a half above sea level, forming what is now the Colorado Plateau.
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Redwood National Park, California
Contains the tallest living trees on Earth. The coast redwood can grow to more than 350 feet. Sitka spruce, hemlock, Douglas-fir, berry bushes, and sword ferns create a multiple canopied understory that towers over all visitors. Cultural landscapes reflect American Indian history.
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Yosemite National Park, California
Located in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. The alpine wilderness, groves of giant Sequoia trees and the spectacular valley landscape make it a pre-eminent natural marvel. Breathtaking panoramas of rugged scenery and huge variety of plant and animal life are protected in this incomparable valley.
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Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
Covers 52,121 acres of finger-like mesas cut by steep-walled canyons. Tucked into sandstone alcoves in these canyons are more than 600 cliff dwellings, for which the park is best known. These stone masonry dwellings. Mesa Verde National Park preserves a vital link to North America's prehistoric past.
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Everglades National Park, Florida
The Everglades, or Grassy Waters as the Seminole Indians call it> Fformed by a river of fresh water that originally varied from depths as little as 6 inches and stretched more than 50 miles wide, flowing slowly across the flat expanse of land at the southern tip of Florida. |
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii
Kilauea and Mauna Loa, two of the active volcanoes in the park on the Big Island of Hawaii. It is thought that the Hawaiian islands were created when molten rock pushed through the earth's crust, forming volcanoes. These volcanoes are among the greatest mountain masses on the earth.
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Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois
This site was first inhabited by Indians of the Late Woodland culture about AD 700. The Cahokia site was the regional center for the Mississippian culture with many satellite communities, villages and farmsteads around it. They also constructed several defensive palisades nearly two-miles long.
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Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky
The most extensive cave system in the world, with more than 365 surveyed miles of cave passageways. The flora and fauna of Mammoth Cave is the richest cavernicolous wildlife known. Long passages with huge chambers, vertical shafts, stalagmites and stalactites, gypsum "flowers" and "needles.
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Statue of Liberty National Monument,New York
Standing at the entrance to New York harbor is a 151-foot statue of a woman holding a book and a torch on-high. "Liberty Enlightening the World"was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States to commemorate the 100th anniversary of American independence.
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Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico
Located in the Chihuahuan Desert in southeastern New Mexico west of the Pecos River, Carlsbad Caverns National Park is outstanding in its profusion, diversity and beauty of mineral formations that occur in a network of more than 100 limestone caves. The park contains 109 known caves.
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Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
Between AD 850 and 1250, Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture. Many diverse clans and peoples helped to create a ceremonial, trade, and administrative center whose architecture, social organization and community life was unlike anything before or since.
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Pueblo de Taos, New Mexico
Located on a small tributary of the Rio Grande, Taos comprises a group of habitations and ceremonial centers representative of a culture largely derived from the traditions of the pre-historic Anasazi Indian tribes who settled near the present borders of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.
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Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee
One of the largest protected land areas in the eastern United States, the Park contains an enormous variety of plants and animals. From Native American sites to one of the largest collections of Southern Appalachian vernacular architecture to be found anywhere.
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Independence Hall, Pennsylvania
LOcated in Philadelphia can be considered the birthplace of the United States of America. It was here the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, the Articles of Confederation uniting the thirteen (13) colonies were ratified in 1781 and the Constitution setting out the nation's basic laws in 1787.
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Monticello and the University of Virginia, Virginia
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's House.
Thomas Jefferson was a man of creative genius whose writings and architecture embody ideals of universal freedom, self-determination and self-fulfillment that continue to inspire humanity. Between 1784 and 1809 he designed, built and then rebuilt his home.
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Olympic National Park, Washington
The 1,400 square miles of Olympic National Park in northwestern Washington state encompasses not only snow-capped Mount Olympus, glaciers, alpine meadows and rocky Pacific Mountain coastline, but also one of the few temperate rain forests in the world.
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Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho
Established by act of the United States Congress in 1872 Originally set aside to preserve geological and geothermal wonders, such as several hundred geysers, many thousands of hot springs, and a complex volcanic and glacial landscape.
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La Fortaleza/ San Juan National Historic Site, Puerto Rico
The system of fortifications built by the Spaniards in the early 16th century is the oldest European construction in the United States and one of the oldest in the New World. DEsigned to protect the entrance of San Juan Bay, ensure that Puerto Rico remained under the sovereignty of Spain.
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National Park Service.. Most people know that the National Park Service cares for national parks, a network of nearly 400 natural, cultural and recreational sites across the nation.
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