Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park is a United States national park that protects the southern 20% of the original Everglades ecosystem in Florida. Spanning over 1.5 million acres (6,000 km2), Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. Over 86% of the park is designated wilderness area; the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness is the largest wilderness area in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. An average of one million people visit the park each year. It was declared a national park in 1947. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.

Most national parks preserve unique geographic features; Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing 0.25 miles (0.40 km) per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay. The park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. Thirty-six threatened or protected species inhabit the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, along with 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.

From Wikipedia and its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text reformatted for this reading view.