National Park Stamps

The world's first national park, set aside in 1872 to protect its geysers, canyons, and wildlife — the idea that launched the entire national-park movement.

The first and largest national military park, preserving the 1863 Civil War battlefields that opened the "gateway to the Deep South."

Its granite cliffs and giant sequoias inspired John Muir's crusade for wilderness and helped shape the very idea of a national park.

Protects the deepest lake in the United States, cradled in the collapsed caldera of an ancient volcano, Mount Mazama.

One of the world's largest natural bridges, long held sacred by the Native peoples of the Colorado Plateau.

Protects the log-cabin site of Lincoln's 1809 birth — one of the first efforts to memorialize a president's humble origins.

Preserves a still-active volcanic landscape where all four types of volcano in the world can be found in one park.

Guards North America's tallest peak and a vast subarctic wilderness of grizzlies, caribou, and wolves.

The 1781 battle that bled Cornwallis's army so badly it set up the British surrender at Yorktown months later.

The first national park east of the Mississippi, assembled almost entirely from land donated by private citizens.

A mile-deep record of two billion years of Earth's history; Roosevelt fought to protect it, urging Americans to "leave it as it is."

Where rifled cannon breached its "impregnable" brick walls in 1862 — instantly making masonry forts obsolete worldwide.

The 1814 defense that moved Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner" — the only site ranked a national monument and historic shrine.

Preserves four major Civil War battlefields — some of the deadliest ground of the entire war.

One of the Civil War's bloodiest battles by percentage; the hard-won Union victory lifted Northern morale at the close of 1862.

Daniel Morgan's 1781 double-envelopment, a tactical masterpiece that shattered a British force in the Carolina backcountry.

Protects one of the world's most spectacular cave systems, with a vast underground chamber and a nightly bat flight.

Links Jamestown, the first permanent English colony, with Yorktown, where the Revolution was decisively won.

Marks the Popes Creek plantation where Washington was born in 1732.

A landscaped parkway preserving the Potomac shoreline and Washington's memory from Mount Vernon to the capital.

The world's largest gypsum dune field — a surreal, ever-shifting sea of white sand.

The most-visited national park, protecting one of the most biodiverse temperate forests on Earth.

Worn Blue Ridge farmland restored to forest, threaded by Skyline Drive along the mountain crest.

"America's Favorite Drive" — a 469-mile scenic parkway linking Shenandoah to the Great Smoky Mountains.

The nation's official memorial to Franklin, seated beneath the dome of Philadelphia's Franklin Institute.

Protects temperate rainforest, glaciated peaks, and wild Pacific coast; FDR pushed to enlarge and protect it.

The first National Historic Site ever designated, preserving the wharves of early American sea trade; Hawthorne worked in its Custom House.

The 1777 American victory that convinced France to join the war — widely called the turning point of the Revolution.

Guards giant sequoia groves and one of the deepest canyons in North America.

The longest known cave system on Earth — over 400 mapped miles of passages.

Where John Brown's 1859 raid helped ignite the Civil War, at the dramatic meeting of two rivers and three states.

The homes of two presidents — John and John Quincy Adams — and four generations of one remarkable family.

Where the first shots of the Civil War were fired in April 1861, in Charleston Harbor.

"America's most historic square mile" — Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, where the Declaration and the Constitution were signed.

The Lexington–Concord road where the Revolution's first shots — "the shot heard round the world" — rang out on April 19, 1775.

Forty miles of protected Atlantic shore, set aside with the help of native son President Kennedy.

The White House and its grounds — home to every U.S. president since John Adams.

"America's front yard" — the Lincoln, Washington, and war memorials at the symbolic heart of the nation.

Honors the founder of Providence and Rhode Island, a pioneer of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

Commemorates the peaceful 1963 settlement of a century-long border dispute between the United States and Mexico.

Protects rare dune-and-swale habitat along Lake Michigan — among the most botanically diverse of all the national parks.

The Brookline house where JFK was born and spent his early childhood.

Protects the tallest trees on Earth — the last great stands of old-growth coast redwoods.

The theater where Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 — still an active, working theater today, alongside the museum and the house across the street where he died.

A 184-mile towpath preserving the canal that once carried coal and goods along the Potomac River.

Barrier-island beaches, historic coastal forts, and marshes strung along the Gulf of Mexico.

Lake Powell and the red-rock canyons of the Colorado River, on the Utah–Arizona border.

One of the largest urban parks in the world — from Alcatraz to the Marin Headlands around San Francisco Bay.

Protects the world's most extensive Permian fossil reef and the highest peak in Texas.

Washington's 1775–76 headquarters during the Siege of Boston, later the home of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The smallest unit in the entire system, honoring the Polish engineer who fortified Saratoga and West Point for the Revolution.

Ties together the Freedom Trail — Faneuil Hall, Old North Church, Bunker Hill, and the USS Constitution.

A reclaimed river valley between Cleveland and Akron — a story of nature's recovery from heavy industry.

The first federal armory, birthplace of the interchangeable-parts manufacturing that powered the American Industrial Revolution.

Home of the first Black woman to charter a bank in the United States — a civil-rights and business pioneer.

Redesignated the nation's newest national park in 2020, protecting one of the oldest rivers on the continent and its rugged gorge.

The largest urban national park, protecting Mediterranean-climate wilderness right beside Los Angeles.

Home of a Maryland signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Preserves the Beacon Hill community and the African Meeting House at the center of Boston's Black abolitionism.

The Philadelphia home Poe kept during his most productive years.

The northernmost national park — an untouched Arctic wilderness with no roads and no trails at all.

King's birthplace, his Ebenezer Baptist Church, and his tomb — the heart of the civil-rights movement in Atlanta.

Protects the Yukon River corridor and Gold Rush history deep in Alaska's interior.

The "birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution," where Slater Mill launched U.S. textile manufacturing.

A protected free-flowing river cutting a deep, wild gorge through the Appalachians.

Country home of a principal drafter and signer of the U.S. Constitution.

Protects one of the world's premier whitewater rivers, released each autumn from Summersville Dam.

The WWII camp where Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated — preserved so the injustice is never forgotten.

The hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America.

Where two deserts meet, protecting the iconic Joshua trees and their fragile ecosystems.

Celebrates the birthplace of jazz — America's original art form — in the streets where it was born.

The only national park devoted to conservation history — three families and the idea of stewarding the land.

The 1,600-mile "Royal Road" that linked Mexico City to Santa Fe for more than two centuries.

Delaware's first national park unit, telling the story of the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

The planned company town at the center of the 1894 Pullman Strike and the rise of the American labor movement.

A landmark clock-tower building on Pennsylvania Avenue, saved from demolition and kept in public hands by the Park Service.

Honors the author of the Declaration of Independence and the nation's third president, on the Tidal Basin among the cherry trees.

The marble obelisk honoring the first president — for decades the tallest structure in the world.