The United States has 63 national parks, but one geography YouTuber thinks that number falls well short of what the country deserves. Carter of the channel “That Is Interesting” explored more than 20 places he believes deserve national park status, drawing on years of travel across the country to make his case.
The list spans the full geographic breadth of the country. In the Pacific Northwest he highlights the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington, a surreal basalt landscape carved by prehistoric floods, and the Columbia River Gorge straddling Oregon and Washington. Idaho gets two nominations, Hell’s Canyon and Craters of the Moon, with Carter noting that Idaho is the only western state with no national parks at all.
California earns four additions in his view, including Big Sur, Point Reyes, the Eastern Sierra beneath Mount Whitney, and Lake Tahoe. Nevada picks up a pair in Valley of Fire and the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats, Colorado’s Royal Gorge, and Arizona’s Sedona round out much of the Southwest portion of the list.
In the Midwest and East, he names South Dakota’s Black Hills, Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes, Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior, and West Virginia’s Harpers Ferry as worthy candidates. Puerto Rico’s El Yunque rainforest rounds out the list as a rare tropical ecosystem with no mainland equivalent.
He also threw in a pair of urban parks, the San Juan National Historic Site in Puerto Rico and Washington DC’s National Mall, both already managed by the National Park Service.
