How Big Is Yellowstone National Park?

Yellowstone National Park is a huge area of the southern part of the USA that covers an area of 8990 square kilometres. It is a forested volcanic plateau that is in the south west of the state of Wyoming and is bordered by mountains. It was established in 1872 and is the oldest national park in the world.

The scenery of Yellowstone is magnificent, including deep canyons, peaceful lakes, powerful waterfalls and spectacular erupting geysers. The great canyon of the Yellowstone river cuts deeply into the plateau and measures more than 600 metres deep in some places.

The landscape was created by the action of glaciers in the area. Lake Yellowstone lies in a crater formed by a volcanic explosion that took place about 600 000 years ago. Although there are no properly active volcanoes in the area at the moment, there is some activity with molten rock just a few thousand feet below the surface – it is these that are responsible for the many hot springs and geysers.