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Home > The
Special Resource Study > What a Unit of the National Park
System Is
Understanding What a Unit of the National Park
System Is
The national park system consists of more than
385 units. The units go by many names - national parks, monuments,
historic sites, historical parks, seashores, recreation areas, and
many others. In total there are more than 20 different park "titles"
within the park system.
These numerous designations sometimes confuse
visitors and, in fact, the titles have not been used consistently
over the years. The names are created by the laws and executive
orders establishing the sites. Many names are descriptive -- lakeshores,
seashores, battlefields -- but others cannot be neatly categorized
because of the diversity of resources within them. In 1970, Congress
passed legislation saying all units of the system have equal legal
standing in a national system.
Units of the national park system are defined
as "areas of land or water administered by the Secretary of the
Interior through the National Park Service." In practice, "administration"
occurs in many ways, from "traditional" units, which are federally
owned and managed, to "nontraditional" units, which rely on partnerships
and may have little, if any, federal land ownership (Boston
Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, for example). Congress
has also recognized certain areas as being "affiliated" with the
national park system, but they are not NPS "units" and NPS does
not own or manage these sites (e.g. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural
National Historic Site, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Lower
East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Site.
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