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Keeping Track of What The National Park Service Is Up To In Your State

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A new Internet feature provided by the National Park Service lets you search the country state-by-state to explore the National Park System...and lots of other Park Service-affiliated sites, such as wild and scenic rivers, historic register sites, or historic trails.

As it continues to improve its web presence, the National Park Service has made it easier for you to find information on the parks in your state...as well as on other Park Service-related entities, such as properties on the national register, or wild and scenic rivers, or historic trails.

To find your home state, or any state that interests you for that matter, simply type in the core url of the Park Service -- www.nps.gov/ -- and follow that forward slash with the name of the state you want to explore. So if you wanted to research Utah, it'd look like this: www.nps.gov/utah .

On the resulting landing page you'll find a map of the state dotted with locations of NPS-affiliated sites, whether they be national parks, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, historic sites, locations on the national register, historic trails, you name it.

Position your cursor over a dot and a box opens explaining what the dot represents. Click on the name, or one of the names, that appears and you'll be taken to a page that provides some background on that specific site.

These pages also offer a list of the Park Service-connected highlights you can find in the specific state you're researching, provide a "by the numbers" breakdown of the Park Service in that state, and even let you add or remove layers of data. So, for instance, if you simply wanted to find the "national parks" in a state and not its battlefields, or national monuments, or projects funded with Land and Water Conservation Funds, you can do that.

This first phase of the project provides details on the following NPS-related programs:

  • Land and Water Conservation Fund
  • American Battlefield Protection Program
  • Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance
  • Save America’s Treasures
  • Preserve America
  • Certified Local Governments
  • Federal Lands to Parks
  • National Register of Historic Places
  • Historic Rehabilitation Tax Incentives.

The bottom line: This is a great resource for doing initial research for a visit.

Comments

Hello:
Bob, I agree with you that all this information seems to be a PR thing ( actually CR- Congressional Relations).  Lee, it seems that if you enter the website the traditional way, and use the "Locate a Park by State" feature, the default, active map layer is the one that shows parks, monuments, etc.   When one uses the "new" way to enter the site (www.nps.gov/state), it seems that all map layers applicable to that state are selected by default.


I don't like the new design at all. In planning a trip, one of the first things I would do is click on a state and see what National Park units were in that state and then plan accordingly. INow, unless I already know what units are in that state (and where they are at) it's almost impossible to easily find the units - especially small ones that don't show up until you zoom in extensively on the map - and if you aren't really sure where a park is, you don't know where to zoom in. I realize there is a box to click (National Parks) and unclick all the rest but again, if there are small parks they aren't very visible on the map and it's become very time conusming using this site to find parks in a given area. I've had to resort to pulling out my NP passport and look up the national park units and plan from there. I


sorry for the typos in the previous post - I saw them right as I hit enter...


Add me to the list of those who don't like the new maps!


I liked the old site better. It was much easier to get to a specific park site and the map was clearer to read.


They have to be kidding. Who cares about certified towns or whatever they called them. The other site was useful. This is not. This is a classic case of let's fix what isn't broken. By the way, in case you've never used it. www.publiclands.org is very useful for trip planning in the western states. It gives you not only the NPS areas, but BLM, NFS and every other possible thing too. It doesn't have a ton of information about the site, but gives you a place to start if, for example, you want to know what's on your route or near the park you plan to visit. It's far more useful than this new NPS mess.


Glad to hear I'm not alone.

How are you finding the old maps?  No matter how I go there (type address, find parks by state, use the national map), all I get is the new map.  Argh.

It's also very odd that the old map for IL featured the Lincoln sites in Springfield and the historic trails through the state.  The new one shows only one "national park" for Illinois, the I&M Canal National Heritage Corridor.  Lincoln and the trails are gone.

So the IT people who did the new map have a different definition of a "national park" than the people who did the old map.

Odd.


MM, it doesn't work when you enter by the traditional method. 

If I zoom in on Utah, Golden Spike shows up as a blob with no label until you click on it.  Timpanogos Cave's blob is so small even at high zoom that it's still nearly invisible.

Kurt, do you have some avenue by which you can get word back to WASO about this?  Can we Travelers have some influence through  you?


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