Like such famous places as Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the Washington
Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, the New Orleans Jazz National
Historical Park is one of 379 national park sites that makeup our
National Park System.
1.) The National Park Service's Southeast Region-headquartered
in Atlanta-encompasses 63 park sites in nine states, Puerto Rico
and the Virgin Islands.
2.) Two-thirds of the Southeast parks have history as their
primary themes. They include the Jazz park in New Orleans; a beach
in the Virgin Islands where Columbus landed on his second voyage
to the New World; Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., where the Civil
War began; and historical places associated with American heroes
such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.
3.) Southeast parks tell stories that cover a span of 9,000
years of human history from the earliest inhabitants at Russell
Cave to the home of our 39th President, Jimmy Carter.
4.) Scenic wonders in the Southeast range from the hazy splendor
of the Great Smoky Mountains, to the grassy swamplands of Florida's
Everglades to kaleidoscopic coral reefs in the Virgin Islands,
to the world's longest cave system at Mammoth Cave, Ky.
6.) The Southeast is home to five of the 10 national seashores
in the National Park System-Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Cumberland
Island, Canaveral and Gulf Islands.
7.) Southeast parks get 65 millions visitors a year-about
one- fourth of the total visitation to National Park System areas
nationwide and more visitors than any of the six other regions
in the National Park Service.
8.) Three of the top 10 most visited national park sites in
the country are located in the Southeast-the Blue Ridge Parkway,
Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Learn more about the National Park Service on their website at
www.nps.gov.
