Nearest national park

How to use it

1. Press My location, type a place, or click the map.
2. Read the nearest park, the distance and the direction, and the ten nearest in the table.
3. Click a park on the map or a row in the table for its details.

5 practical uses

1. Plan a weekend by finding the closest park to home.
2. Pick the next park on a road trip.
3. Find the parks within reach of a city you are visiting.
4. Compare distances to several parks before choosing one.
5. Check which park is nearest to a hotel or a campsite.

The maths behind it

The haversine great-circle distance from the point to each of the 63 park points is computed and the parks are sorted by it. The direction is the initial bearing from the point to the park: θ = atan2(sin Δλ cos φ₂, cos φ₁ sin φ₂ − sin φ₁ cos φ₂ cos Δλ).

Notes

The 63 are the areas Congress has designated "national park", from Yellowstone (1872) to New River Gorge (2020); the rest of the 400-odd sites of the National Park Service (monuments, seashores, historic sites) are not included. Each park is one point, roughly at its centre or main visitor area; big parks like Death Valley or Wrangell–St. Elias stretch a long way from that point. The distance is a straight line; for the drive, put the park into the driving distance tool.