122 Fun Facts About National Parks

Which national park surrounds the deepest lake in the United States, at 1,949 feet?

Crater Lake in Oregon is 1,949 feet deep, filling the basin left when a volcano collapsed about 7,700 years ago; it is fed only by rain and snow.

In what year was the first U.S. national park established?

The first national park was established in 1872, when the 42nd Congress set aside about two million acres in the Wyoming Territory as a public pleasuring-ground.

Which is the smallest U.S. national park by area?

Gateway Arch, at about 91 acres in St. Louis, was the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial until its 2018 redesignation and is far smaller than the next-smallest park, Hot Springs.

In what year did Congress create the National Park Service?

Congress created the National Park Service through the Organic Act of August 25, 1916, putting the growing roster of parks and monuments under one agency for the first time.

Which area was established as the first national park in the United States?

It is also widely regarded as the first national park in the world, and sits mostly in Wyoming with slivers in Montana and Idaho.

Which California national park contains the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree on Earth by volume?

It grows in the Giant Forest, which holds five of the ten largest trees in the world.

Which U.S. President signed the act that established the first national park?

Ulysses S. Grant signed the act during his first term, setting the land aside 'as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people'.

How many congressionally designated National Parks did the United States have at the end of 2025, among 400-plus Park Service units?

There were 63 national parks at the end of 2025; 'national park' is one of about 20 designations alongside monuments and seashores, and the 63rd was added in December 2020.

Which national park is the largest by area in the United States?

Located in Alaska, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest unit of the U.S. National Park System, covering over 13 million acres.

Which national park is the largest by area in the contiguous United States?

Straddling the California-Nevada border, Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the contiguous 48 states.

Which U.S. state is home to the most national parks?

California leads all U.S. states with nine national parks within its borders, either fully or partially.

Which South Dakota national park contains about 95 percent of the world's discovered boxwork formations?

Wind Cave holds about 95 percent of the world's known boxwork, a honeycomb of thin calcite fins; the park sits about 10 miles north of Hot Springs, South Dakota.

Which national park was the first established east of the Mississippi River?

Acadia National Park, located primarily on Mount Desert Island in Maine, holds the distinction of being the first national park established in the eastern United States.

Which national park protects the world's longest known cave system?

Mammoth Cave keeps growing on paper as surveyors connect passages; guided tours have run since 1816, and the enslaved guide Stephen Bishop mapped much of it in the 1840s.

What national park is famous for its iconic granite formations like El Capitan and Half Dome?

Yosemite's Half Dome rises nearly 4,800 feet above the valley floor, and the park was designated a World Heritage Site in 1984.

Which Arkansas site, protected as a reservation in 1832, is the oldest area maintained by the Park Service?

Hot Springs was set aside as a federal reservation in 1832 and only became a national park in 1921, but its seniority earned it the first America the Beautiful quarter in 2010.

Which national park did George Bird Grinnell dub the 'Crown of the Continent' in 1901?

Glacier National Park in Montana earned Grinnell's 1901 nickname; of roughly 150 glaciers there in the mid-1800s, only 25 active ones remained by 2010.

Which Florida national park is known for vast wetlands, alligators and panthers?

Everglades National Park in Florida is a vast wetland ecosystem, famous for its unique flora and fauna, including alligators, crocodiles, and the Florida panther.

Which national park is primarily known for its namesake canyon, carved by the Colorado River?

Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona preserves one of the most spectacular natural wonders of the world, a massive canyon carved by the Colorado River over millions of years.

Which Washington national park combines rugged mountains, temperate rainforest and coastline?

Olympic National Park on Washington's Olympic Peninsula boasts incredibly diverse ecosystems, including glaciated peaks, old-growth temperate rainforests, and over 70 miles of wild coastline.

Which national park drew the most visitors in 2024?

Great Smoky Mountains drew more than 12 million visitors in 2024, partly because a highway runs through it and entry is free; the 'smoke' is haze from the forest's own vapour.

Which national park is known for its dramatic cliff dwellings built by ancient Pueblo people?

Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado preserves an exceptional collection of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings and other archaeological sites.

Which Utah national park is famous for massive sandstone cliffs, deep canyons and canyoneering?

Zion's Virgin River North Fork drops 50 to 80 feet per mile, one of the steepest stream gradients in North America, which is what cut the canyon's sandstone walls.

Which national park is an archipelago of seven islands 70 miles west of Key West, Florida?

Dry Tortugas is more than 99 percent water; Ponce de León named the keys in 1513 for their turtles, and 'dry' warned sailors there was no fresh water.

Which national park encompasses both Kīlauea and Mauna Loa?

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spans both summits; Kīlauea's 2018 eruption closed the summit area for months, and Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano on Earth.

Which Utah national park is packed with hoodoos, rock pinnacles up to 200 feet tall carved by frost and rain?

Bryce Canyon is not a canyon at all but a series of natural amphitheatres; the Paiute told of hoodoos as 'Legend People' turned to stone by Coyote.

Which national park hosts evening bat-flight viewings from its natural cave entrance?

Carlsbad Caverns hosts evening bat-flight viewings of Brazilian free-tailed bats from a natural-entrance amphitheater; its Big Room is the largest cave chamber in North America.

Which national park is an island archipelago off Southern California, reachable only by boat or plane?

Channel Islands National Park lies off the coast of Southern California, reachable only by boat or plane, and its isolation produced endemic species such as the island fox.

Which Alaska national park, north of the Arctic Circle, holds North America's largest active Arctic sand dunes and a caribou highway?

Kobuk Valley's Great Kobuk Sand Dunes rise 100 feet, leftovers of ice-age fields; the park gets so few visitors it is routinely among the least-visited in the system.

Which Alaska national park did John Muir first explore by canoe with Tlingit guides in 1879?

Glacier Bay is where John Muir paddled with Tlingit guides and missionary S. Hall Young in 1879; his writings drew steamship tourists within a decade, and Muir Glacier bears his name.

Which national park offers Blue Ridge waterfalls and overlooks just 75 miles from Washington, D.C.?

Shenandoah National Park in Virginia runs 105 miles along the Blue Ridge, with waterfalls such as Dark Hollow Falls and more than 500 miles of trails including part of the Appalachian Trail.

Which Texas national park has desert landscapes and the Rio Grande forming part of its border?

Big Bend National Park, located in a remote part of West Texas, protects a vast area of Chihuahuan Desert landscape, mountains, and a significant section of the Rio Grande.

Which South Dakota national park is famed for its Oligocene fossil beds of ancient mammals?

Badlands National Park's White River formations hold one of the world's richest Oligocene mammal fossil beds, with oreodonts and brontotheres collected there since the 1840s.

Which Arizona national park preserves Triassic fossil logs and part of the Painted Desert?

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona is famous for its large deposits of petrified wood and the vibrantly colored badlands of the Painted Desert.

Which Michigan national park is a Lake Superior archipelago known for its wolf-moose study?

Isle Royale's main island is the largest in Lake Superior, and the remote archipelago's wolves and moose are the subjects of a predator-prey study running since 1958.

Which is the only U.S. National Park Service unit located south of the equator?

The National Park of American Samoa is the only unit south of the equator; its only native mammals are three bat species, including two large fruit bats.

Which Washington national park is centered on a 14,410-foot stratovolcano?

Mount Rainier, established in 1899, rises 14,410 feet; its Carbon Glacier is the largest glacier by volume in the contiguous United States.

Which national park is known for a network of interconnected lakes ideal for paddling?

Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota is a water-based park, offering a network of interconnected lakes and waterways that are popular for boating, fishing, and kayaking.

Which Utah national park preserves the 100-mile Waterpocket Fold?

Capitol Reef takes its name from white domes resembling the U.S. Capitol and from the Waterpocket Fold, a nearly 100-mile wrinkle in the Earth's crust that was a barrier, or 'reef', to travel.

Which national park features hydrothermal areas and the world's largest plug dome volcano?

Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California is home to all four types of volcanoes found in the world, along with hydrothermal features like mud pots and fumaroles.

Which Alaska national park has the Brooks Falls platform for watching salmon-fishing bears?

Katmai's Brooks Falls platform is where the famous bear-catching-salmon photos were taken; the park also holds the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, buried under ash from a 1912 eruption.

Which Washington national park has glaciated peaks, deep valleys and over 300 glaciers?

North Cascades holds more than 300 glaciers, and their meltwater carries finely ground 'glacial flour' that turns Diablo Lake a milky turquoise.

Which Utah national park is divided into districts named Island in the Sky, The Needles, and The Maze?

Canyonlands' three land districts are separated by its rivers, which meet inside the park; the Maze is among the most remote areas in the lower 48.

Which national park preserves the largest gypsum dunefield on Earth?

White Sands' dunes hold about 4.5 billion tons of gypsum in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin, and the park was upgraded from a national monument in December 2019.

Which Florida national park is known for its shallow, clear waters and mangrove forests?

Biscayne's Elliott Key, its largest island, is the northernmost of the true Florida Keys and formed from fossilized coral reef; the park is about 95 percent water.

Which California national park is known for its talus caves and a California condor release site?

Pinnacles' talus caves shelter more than a dozen bat species, and the park has released captive-bred California condors since 2003.

Which national park's El Capitan cliff guided the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoaches?

Guadalupe Mountains' El Capitan cliff was a landmark for the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach route; the park also holds Texas's highest point, 8,751-foot Guadalupe Peak.

Which national park preserves the largest old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States?

Congaree holds one of the largest concentrations of champion trees anywhere, including a loblolly pine about 169 feet tall, in floodplain forest along the Congaree River.

Which Nevada national park is known for ancient bristlecone pines and Lehman Caves?

Great Basin National Park in Nevada encompasses diverse landscapes, from desert to alpine, and is famous for its ancient bristlecone pine groves and the unique Lehman Caves.

Which Alaska national park protects the central Brooks Range with no roads, trails or campgrounds?

Gates of the Arctic, the northernmost U.S. national park, protects part of the central Brooks Range and has no roads, trails, visitor facilities or campgrounds.

Which Alaska national park is home to the active Iliamna and Redoubt volcanoes?

Lake Clark National Park holds both volcanoes; Redoubt erupted in 1989 and 2009, and the park also protects major salmon-bearing rivers feeding Bristol Bay.

Kakadu National Park, famed for Aboriginal rock art, lies in which country?

Australia's Kakadu, in the Northern Territory, covers nearly 20,000 square kilometres and holds Aboriginal rock art galleries such as Ubirr and Nourlangie, some painted thousands of years ago.

Banff, proclaimed in 1885, was the first national park of which country?

Canada's Banff was originally set aside in 1885 as the Banff Hot Springs Reserve after competing claims over who had discovered and could develop the hot springs.

More than 1.5 million of which animal make up the Serengeti's great migration?

About 1.5 million wildebeest make the circuit, joined by roughly 250,000 plains zebra and several hundred thousand Thomson's gazelle.

Kruger, a reserve roughly the size of Wales, became the first national park of which country in 1926?

South Africa's Kruger was protected from 1898 as the Sabie Game Reserve, and since 2002 it has formed part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The world's largest national park, roughly 972,000 square kilometres, occupies the north-east of which island?

Northeast Greenland National Park, established in 1974, covers about 972,000 square kilometres, larger than all but about thirty of the world's countries.

The Galapagos Islands are protected as the first national park of which country?

Ecuador declared the Galápagos a national park in 1959, its first; the park began operating in 1968 and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which animal, the world's largest lizard at up to three metres long, has had its own Indonesian national park since 1980?

The Komodo dragon was unknown to science until 1912, after a Dutch officer reported giant reptiles on the islands; its bite is venomous, not merely bacteria-laden as long believed.

Tongariro, whose peaks were conveyed to the Crown in 1887, is the oldest national park in which country?

New Zealand's Tongariro became a national park when the Tongariro National Park Act passed in October 1894, seven years after Te Heuheu Tukino IV gifted the sacred peaks to the Crown.

The UNESCO-listed Plitvice Lakes, a chain of tufa lakes and waterfalls, are a national park in which country?

Croatia founded Plitvice Lakes National Park in 1949, and UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list in 1979.

Which national park absorbed the tiny General Grant National Park in 1940?

Kings Canyon National Park was created in 1940 and absorbed General Grant National Park, established in 1890 around the General Grant Tree, the nation's Christmas tree.

What is the summit elevation of Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America?

Denali stands 20,310 feet; the US Geological Survey remeasured it in 2015, trimming ten feet from the 20,320-foot figure obtained by photogrammetry in 1952.

Mammoth Cave National Park is in which US state?

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave has formally been called the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System since 1972, when surveyors found a connection between the two.

The Everglades are fed by a slow-moving sheet of water flowing out of which body of water?

Water spilling from Lake Okeechobee creeps south-west at about a quarter of a mile per day toward Florida Bay, forming the 'River of Grass'.

Which large animal appears on the National Park Service's arrowhead emblem?

A bison stands on the National Park Service arrowhead, adopted in 1951, beside a sequoia, mountains and water that stand for wildlife, plants, scenery and recreation.

Which Yellowstone geyser, erupting roughly every 90 minutes, is the park's best-known?

Old Faithful erupts about 20 times a day at intervals of roughly 60 to 110 minutes, and the Washburn Expedition named it in 1870 for its dependable schedule.

Grand Teton National Park includes most of the northern part of which valley?

Grand Teton, established in 1929, took in most of northern Jackson Hole when the Jackson Hole National Monument was merged into it in 1950.

Trail Ridge Road, which tops 12,000 feet, crosses which national park?

Rocky Mountain National Park's Trail Ridge Road reaches 12,183 feet, crosses the Continental Divide at Milner Pass, and opened to Fall River Pass in 1932.

Joshua Tree National Park spans which two deserts?

Joshua Tree straddles the higher Mojave Desert, where the namesake Yucca brevifolia grows, and the lower Colorado Desert, a western arm of the Sonoran.

What is the name of the world's tallest known living tree, found in Redwood National Park?

Hyperion, a coast redwood discovered in 2006, stands about 380 feet tall in an undisclosed location in the park.

What does the Hawaiian name Haleakalā mean?

Haleakalā means 'House of the sun'; in legend the demigod Māui lassoed the sun there, and visitors flock to the Maui summit to watch sunrise.

Which ice mass forms the heart of Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska?

The Harding Icefield, which feeds nearly 40 glaciers, forms the heart of Kenai Fjords, on the Kenai Peninsula west of Seward.

Saguaro National Park's two districts lie on either side of which Arizona city?

The Tucson Mountain and Rincon Mountain districts sit about 10 miles west and east of the city.

How tall are the tallest dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado?

Star Dune rises about 750 feet, making these the tallest dunes in North America; the main dunefield covers about 30 square miles.

Which park along Lake Michigan became the 61st US national park in February 2019?

Indiana Dunes had been a national lakeshore since 1966 before its February 2019 redesignation as the 61st national park.

Virgin Islands National Park covers about 60% of which island?

The park covers roughly three-fifths of Saint John, the smallest of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands, after a 1956 land donation.

Denali was formerly named after which US president?

William McKinley never visited Alaska; a gold prospector named the mountain for him in 1896, and the peak's own name has flipped between Denali and McKinley ever since.

Badwater Basin in Death Valley lies how far below sea level?

Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America, only about 85 miles from 14,505-foot Mount Whitney.

What record temperature was recorded at Death Valley's Greenland Ranch on July 10, 1913?

The 134 °F reading at Greenland Ranch, later renamed Furnace Creek, was certified by the World Meteorological Organization as the highest air temperature recorded on Earth.

Which president signed the Yosemite Grant of 1864, federally preserving Yosemite Valley?

Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864, ceding the valley and Mariposa Grove to California; John Muir's campaign made Yosemite a national park in 1890.

How many river miles long is the Grand Canyon, from Lees Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs?

The Grand Canyon runs 277 river miles from Lees Ferry to the Grand Wash Cliffs, up to 18 miles wide and about a mile deep.

Yellowstone contains at least how many geothermal features in total?

Yellowstone holds more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, including over 500 geysers, roughly half of all the active geysers on Earth.

Yellowstone lies mainly in Wyoming with small portions in which two other states?

Yellowstone lies mostly in Wyoming, with strips of Montana along its north and west edges and of Idaho in the south-west corner, a boundary drawn before any of the three became states.

Glacier National Park's famous 1932 motor route across the mountains is called what?

Going-to-the-Sun Road, finished in 1932 and dedicated in 1933, crosses Logan Pass at 6,646 feet and is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Glacier and Canada's Waterton Lakes together formed the world's first what, in 1932?

Waterton-Glacier became the world's first International Peace Park in 1932, and the pair was later inscribed together as a single World Heritage Site in 1995.

Crater Lake occupies the caldera of which destroyed volcano?

Mount Mazama, a roughly 12,000-foot stratovolcano, collapsed about 7,700 years ago in a violent eruption, leaving the basin that Crater Lake fills.

Which Colorado national park's Painted Wall is the state's tallest cliff?

Black Canyon of the Gunnison's Painted Wall rises about 2,250 feet, the tallest cliff in Colorado, its dark gneiss streaked with pink pegmatite dikes.

Which is the largest of New Zealand's national parks?

Fiordland covers 12,607 km² and forms much of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Site, which also takes in Aoraki/Mount Cook.

Since which year has climbing Uluru been banned?

The climb closed permanently on 26 October 2019, after the Uluru-Kata Tjuta park board voted unanimously for the ban in November 2017.

Torres del Paine National Park is in the Patagonian region of which country?

Chile's Torres del Paine lies in the Magallanes region between the Magellanic subpolar forests and the Patagonian steppes.

Which Argentine national park, created in 1934, protects famous waterfalls on the Brazilian border?

Iguazú National Park, in Misiones province, was created in 1934 to protect the Iguazú Falls, some 275 cascades on the Brazilian border; Brazil's park guards the other side.

Which Nepalese national park, established in 1976, includes Mount Everest?

Sagarmatha, the Nepali name for Everest, gives the park its name; elevations run from 2,845 m to the 8,848 m summit.

Which was Nepal's first national park, established in 1973?

Chitwan, in the Terai lowlands, became Nepal's first national park in 1973 and covers 952 km²; it shelters one-horned rhinos and Bengal tigers.

India's first national park (1936) is named after which hunter-turned-conservationist?

It lies in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand.

Which Indian national park holds the world's largest population of Indian rhinoceros?

Kaziranga, in Assam, holds about two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinoceros, plus the largest populations of wild water buffalo and eastern swamp deer.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda is home to about half the world's what?

Bwindi shelters roughly 460 mountain gorillas by the 2018 census, about half of the world's population, with the rest in the Virunga Massif.

Virunga, created in 1925, is a national park in which country?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga, founded in 1925 as Albert National Park, is Africa's oldest national park and lies in the Albertine Rift Valley.

Etosha National Park, proclaimed a game reserve in 1907, is in which country?

Namibia's Etosha covers about 22,270 km² around a vast salt pan and was proclaimed a game reserve in 1907 by German colonial governor Friedrich von Lindequist.

Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania is the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled what?

Ngorongoro is a volcanic caldera about 19 km across and 600 m deep, left when a large volcano collapsed some 2 to 3 million years ago; the conservation area is a World Heritage Site.

Which was the first national park designated in the United Kingdom, in April 1951?

The Peak District was designated on 17 April 1951, the first under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949; the Lake District followed a month later.

Which is Canada's largest national park, bigger than Switzerland?

Wood Buffalo, straddling Alberta and the Northwest Territories, covers 44,807 km² and was established in 1922 to protect the world's largest herd of free-roaming wood bison.

The name Serengeti is often attributed to a Maasai word meaning what?

Serengeti comes from the Maasai 'siringet', meaning endless plains; the park covers 14,763 km² of northern Tanzania.

What percentage of the Galápagos Islands' land area is designated national park?

About 97% of the islands' land is national park; the remaining 3% is the inhabited zones on Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela and Floreana.

Who was the first director of the US National Park Service?

Stephen Mather made his fortune selling 20 Mule Team Borax and spent it on the parks; his deputy Horace Albright succeeded him in 1929.

John Muir was born in 1838 in which country?

John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and emigrated to Wisconsin at 11; the 'Father of the National Parks' co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892.

How many national parks does Alaska have?

Alaska has eight national parks — Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark and Wrangell-St. Elias — all created or enlarged by the 1980 Alaska lands act.

Which industrialist gave $5 million in 1928 toward creating Great Smoky Mountains park?

John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave $5 million through the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, matching state funds; Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park at Newfound Gap in 1940.

Which peak in Acadia is the tallest on the US Atlantic coast?

Cadillac Mountain rises 1,530 feet, the highest point on the U.S. Atlantic coast, and from early October to early March it catches the first sunrise in the country.

What is the main road running along the ridgeline of Shenandoah National Park?

Skyline Drive runs 105 miles along the crest of Shenandoah, with some 70 overlooks and a 35 mph speed limit.

Carlsbad Caverns' 'Big Room', the largest chamber in North America, is about how long?

The Big Room runs about 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide and 255 feet high at its tallest point, covering some 8.2 acres.

Vatnajökull National Park, covering about 14 percent of the country, is in which nation?

Iceland's Vatnajökull National Park, created in 2008 around the island's largest ice cap, covers roughly 14 percent of the country and became a World Heritage Site in 2019.

Channel Islands National Park consists of how many of the eight Channel Islands?

Five islands — Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Barbara — make up the park; Santa Cruz, the largest, is shared with The Nature Conservancy.

Voyageurs National Park is named after which group of people?

Voyageurs honours the French-Canadian fur traders who paddled birchbark canoes along this border route; the park was established in 1975.

Which massive, unfinished coastal fortress is the centrepiece of Dry Tortugas park?

Fort Jefferson, begun in 1846 and never finished, is the largest brick masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere at more than 16 million bricks.

Which national park has a single 92-mile road, mostly closed to private vehicles?

Denali's single Park Road runs 92 miles to Kantishna; private cars may drive only the first 15 miles, with shuttle buses beyond.

Which is the largest national park in the United Kingdom?

The Cairngorms, designated in 2003, cover 4,528 km² of the Scottish Highlands, nearly twice the Lake District, and hold five of the UK's six highest mountains.

White Sands National Park is completely surrounded by what?

White Sands Missile Range surrounds the park on all sides and occasionally closes it for tests; the range's Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945, lies to the north.

Triglav is the only national park of which European country?

Slovenia's Triglav, its only national park, centres on the 2,864 m peak that is the highest in the Julian Alps and feeds both the Soča, flowing to the Adriatic, and the Sava, bound for the Black Sea.

Teide National Park, centred on Spain's highest mountain, is on which island?

Tenerife's Teide was declared a park in 1954 and a World Heritage Site in 2007; the 3,715 m volcano is Spain's highest mountain and the island also hosts the Teide Observatory.

Tsavo East in Kenya was established in April 1948 on a semi-arid area previously known as what?

The Taru Desert became Tsavo East in April 1948; with Tsavo West it forms about 22,000 square kilometres, famous for its often maneless lions.

Sri Lanka's Yala National Park was first designated as what, in 1900?

Yala became a wildlife sanctuary in 1900, alongside Wilpattu, and was made a national park in 1938; it is known for one of the world's densest leopard populations.

Which body's 1977-78 venture put over 100 scientists into Malaysia's Mulu rainforest for 15 months?

The Royal Geographical Society ran the 1977-78 Gunung Mulu expedition with the Sarawak government; it launched the Mulu Caves Project, and Gunung Mulu became a World Heritage Site in 2000.