Explainer / Yellowstone National Park

• Yellowstone National Park in the United States has been shut because flooding and rockslides have cut roads, leaving some communities stranded.

• Roads have been washed out in the northern portion of the 9,000 square kilometer park after torrential rainfall and snowmelt sent months’ worth of run-off into rivers in just a couple of days.

• Major sections of the park’s northern half are expected to remain closed for the rest of the season, dealing an economic blow to adjacent gateway communities counting on a rebound in Yellowstone tourism following two years of COVID-19 restrictions.

• It is the park’s first disaster-related closing in summer since wildfires roared through the area in 1988.

Yellowstone National Park

• On March 1, 1872, US President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law.

• Yellowstone is regarded as the world’s first national park and one of the most popular outdoor destinations in the US.

• For over 10,000 years before Yellowstone became a national park, it was a place where Native Americans lived, hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian, and used thermal waters for religious and medicinal purposes.

• Based on the park’s location at the convergence of the Great Plains, Great Basin, and Columbia Plateau, 27 Native American Tribes have historic and modern connections to the land and its resources. 

• Yellowstone National Park celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.

• The vast natural forest of Yellowstone National Park covers nearly 9,000 sq km. Nearly 96 per cent of the park lies in Wyoming, 3 per cent in Montana and 1 per cent in Idaho. 

• It is a protected area showcasing significant geological phenomena and processes.  It is also a unique manifestation of geothermal forces, natural beauty, and wild ecosystems where rare and endangered species thrive. 

• Yellowstone contains half of all the world’s known geothermal features, with more than 10,000 examples. It also has the world’s largest concentration of geysers (more than 300 geysers, or two thirds of all those on the planet).

• It serves as the core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the last and largest nearly intact natural ecosystems on the planet.

• The park was the inspiration for Jellystone Park in the 1960s cartoon ‘Yogi Bear’.

• It hosts 4 million visitors each year. 

• During peak summer season, up to 750 Park Service employees work in Yellowstone, along with 3,500 concessions workers who staff the park’s nine hotels and other guest facilities such as restaurants and gift shops.

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