Podyjí National Park (Czech: Národní park Podyjí) is a national park in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Adjacent to Austria's Thayatal National Park on the border, together they are referred to as the Inter-National park. Podyjí is one of the Czech Republic's four national parks. It protects near-natural forests along the deep Dyje River valley. The well-preserved state of the biome of the park is cited as being unique in Central Europe.
Podyjí National Park is one of the four national parks of the Czech Republic. It has an area of 63 square kilometres (24 sq mi) and buffer zone of 29 square kilometres (11 sq mi). It was formally declared a national park 1 July 1991 by government order no. 164/1991.BirdLife International (IBA) has included this park under its criteria C6 covering a larger area of 76.66 square kilometres (29.60 sq mi).
Podyjí National Park lies in an elevation range of 534–214 metres (1,752–702 ft). Its habitats include forest, grassland, arable land, shrubland, rocky areas and inland wetlands. The park is drained by the Dyje River, which flows for a length of 40 kilometres (25 mi) through the park in a thickly-forested valley within the Českomoravská vrchovina uplands. The river valley's depth measures up 220 metres (720 ft). Land use has been established for nature conservation and research, forestry and agriculture. Park trails lead to the castle ruins of Nový Hrádek, Hardegg Castle, and Vranov nad Dyjí Chateau.
A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of 'wild nature' for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined "National Park" as its Category II type of protected areas.
While this type of national park had been proposed previously, the United States established the first "public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people", Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. The first area to use "national park" in its creation legislation was the US's Mackinac Island, in 1875. Australia's Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the world's third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park and national park status was consequently lost. As a result, Australia's Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence.
The United States has 59 protected areas known as national parks that are operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. The first national park, Yellowstone, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Mackinac National Park in 1875 (decommissioned in 1895), and then Rock Creek Park (later merged into National Capital Parks), Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Many current National Parks had been previously protected as National Monuments by the President under the Antiquities Act before being upgraded by Congress. Seven national parks (six in Alaska) are paired with a National Preserve. While administered together, they are considered as separate units and their areas are not included in the figures below. The newest national park is Pinnacles National Park, upgraded in 2013.
A national park is a reserve of land.
National Park may also refer to: