U.S. National Parks You Might Not Know Quiz

Answer: Utah

Established as a National Park in 1971, Capitol Reef doesn't beget what most might believe its name implies; visitors won't find coral beds along a coast, but instead an inland desert region covering nearly 250,000 acres of southern Utah. A region created by tectonic shift around the time of the dinosaurs, Capitol Reef sits on what's called the Waterpocket Fold.

There were never reefs in this area, however. The park instead gets its name from its almost impassable rock formations, referred to as reefs by settlers who passed through the region in the nineteenth century.

The region has been occupied much longer than that; Native Americans have used the local rivers there for more than a thousand years.

Answer: Black Canyon

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, found in Colorado, isn't named because of its dramatic, dark-coloured, tree-lined canyons, but because its deepest regions barely receive sunlight-- sometimes about half hour a day. Covering thirty thousand acres, this National Park was established in 1999 near the city of Montrose and the San Juan Mountains. Today it's frequented by advanced rock climbers looking for a challenge.

Naturally, because of the steepness of the rock (steeper than the Grand Canyon), it's neither the easiest to hike nor raft through.

Answer: Maui

While the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park is on the island of Hawai'i, Haleakala National Park is comprised of the volcanoes, dormant and active, on Maui. Spread across over thirty thousand acres of protected land, the park was established in 1961 and was subsequently split in two, the western portion being frequented by visitors and the eastern part being made into the Kipahulu Valley Biological Reserve in the early 1980s, protecting the local rainforests.

Answer: Missile range

Becoming a National Park in 2019, White Sands National Park covers nearly 150,000 acres near New Mexico's southern border. Though this region has been protected since the 1930s, it has also been surrounded by military testing grounds since the 1940s, being used into the 21st century for landing spacecraft. White Sands is named after the obvious-- the National Park is filled with the largest desert of gypsum crystals found anywhere in the world, having formed more than ten thousand years ago from erosion in the Tularosa Basin.

Answer: Rio Grande

Found in the Chihuahuan Desert in the western reaches of Texas, Big Bend National Park has had a long history for Native Americans, early American settlers, miners and ranchers. The centrepiece is, naturally, the bend itself; the park is named for the severe bend that the Rio Grande makes in the park's borders as it winds south from Colorado and towards the Gulf of Mexico.

Besides the river, the park is home to the isolated Chisos Mountains which create their own unique ecosystems in the surrounding area. Because of how far the park is from major population centres, it's one of the least-visited in the park system.

It was established in 1935.

Answer: Cascade Range

Found at the southernmost edge of the Cascade Range as it cuts down through California, Lassen Volcanic National Park is a unique geological hotspot found where two tectonic plates meet. The only spot in the United States where all different types of volcano can be found within the same region, it happens to be named after one of the largest lava domes in the world. Lassen Peak reaches an altitude of more than ten thousand feet above sea level and it, along with Mount St. Helens, was the only U.S. mainland volcano to erupt in the twentieth century.

Lassen Volcanic National Park was established as a National Park in 1917...while it was still erupting.

Answer: Ontario

The French name may have been a bit of a throw here; this National Park isn't named as such because it's near Quebec, but it does refer to early settlers in the area who passed through for the fur trade. It might be surprising, as well, that most visitors coming to Voyageurs aren't the type to drive in.

Instead, you'd be likely to see visitors coming in by boat, exploring the four major lakes of the region as they cut through the Canadian Shield. It's along the old portage route through this region that the Canadian-American border was established in the late 18th-century. Voyageurs became a National Park in 1975.

Answer: Miami

Located across Biscayne Bay from Miami, Biscayne National Park technically marks the northernmost reach of the Florida Keys and is one of the few National Parks in the system to be comprised almost entirely of water. The only part of the park that visitors are likely to step foot on are the mangrove forests along the coast where this park connects to the shore.

Despite being so close to Miami, Biscayne also happens to take in a massive and unique ecosystem for multiple endangered aquatic species and a section of the Florida Reef.

It became a National Park in 1980.

Answer: Katmai National Park and Preserve

Alaska isn't short of National Parks, with more than half a dozen of them in the state by the time the U.S. shifted into the 21st century. Katmai might be the least-known of the set, being found on a large peninsula near Kodiak Island in southwest Alaska.

It takes in more than four million acres of land and is very rarely frequented due to its remoteness and lack of amenities, but those looking for a unique and unspoiled landscape would find significant amounts of wildlife and recently active volcanoes.

Answer: South Carolina

Comprising the floodplain forests around the Congaree River in the middle of South Carolina, Congaree National Park was established in 2003 to protect one of the oldest bottomland hardwood forests in North America. Though some visits to this National Park may have visitors wading through the trails, what they'll find is a healthy and lush ecosystem and biosphere reserve that makes it more than just a swampy wetland.

Despite easy accessibility, it's historically been one of the least-visited parks in the country.