Grand Canyon National Park
| Grand Canyon National Park | |
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IUCN category II (national park)
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View from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
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| Location | Coconino and Mohave counties, Arizona, United States |
| Nearest city |
Fredonia, Arizona (North Rim) Tusayan, Arizona (South Rim) |
| Coordinates | 36°03′19″N 112°07′19″W / 36.0552608°N 112.1218355°WCoordinates: 36°03′19″N 112°07′19″W / 36.0552608°N 112.1218355°W |
| Area | 1,217,262 acres (4,926.08 km2) |
| Established | February 26, 1919 |
| Visitors | 5,520,736 (in 2015) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | Grand Canyon National Park |
| Type | Natural |
| Criteria | vii, viii, ix, x |
| Designated | 1979 (3rd session) |
| Reference no. | 75 |
| State Party |
 United States
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| Region | Europe and North America |
 Public domain images from the National Park Service. |
Grand Canyon National Park is the United States' 15th oldest national park. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, the park is located in northwestern Arizona. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The park covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 492,608 ha; 4,926.08 km2) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties. As of 2015, the park received more than five and a half million recreational visitors, which is the second highest count of all U.S. national parks after Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Grand Canyon was officially designated a national park in 1919, though the landmark had been well known to Americans for over thirty years prior. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the site and said: "The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled through-out the wide world... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."
Despite Roosevelt's enthusiasm and his strong interest in preserving land for public use, the Grand Canyon was not immediately designated as a national park. The first bill to establish Grand Canyon National Park was introduced in 1882 by then-Senator Benjamin Harrison, which would have established Grand Canyon as the second national park in the United States after Yellowstone. Harrison unsuccessfully reintroduced his bill in 1883 and 1886; after his election to the presidency, he established the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in 1893. Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Game Preserve by proclamation on 28 November 1906 and Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908. Further Senate bills to establish the site as a national park were introduced and defeated in 1910 and 1911, before the Grand Canyon National Park Act was finally signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The National Park Service, established in 1916, assumed administration of the park.
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Wikipedia