Everglades National Park United States

Legendary

A network of wetlands and forests making up the largest tropical wilderness in the United States.

Photo by Stig Nygaard

Kid Rating:

The Everglades isn't a swamp. It's a river.

The water is just a few inches deep in most places, but it spreads out for miles across the land. It flows so slowly that you can stand in it and never see it move.

That water starts at Lake Okeechobee, a huge lake in central Florida. In the past it spilled over the lake's southern edge and drifted south all the way to the sea.

A writer named Marjory Stoneman Douglas gave the place its famous nickname in 1947. She called it the river of grass, and the name stuck.

People have lived here for a very long time. Native American communities hunted and fished across this land as far back as 1000 BC.

In the 1800s, developers started digging canals to drain the water away and turn the land into farms and towns. Hunters also killed huge numbers of birds to sell their feathers for fashionable hats.

Both the land and the wildlife were in serious trouble. A man named Ernest Coe spent years campaigning to protect the area.

Congress approved the park in 1934. But the Great Depression meant there was no money to buy the land, so it existed only on paper for years.

The park was finally dedicated by President Harry Truman in December 1947. It was the first U.S. national park created to protect a living ecosystem rather than beautiful scenery.

The threats haven't gone away. Canals, dams, farms, and cities have redirected much of the water that once flowed south, and the wildlife depends on that water.

More than 30 threatened or protected species live here. Florida panthers, American crocodiles, manatees, and wood storks all rely on this shallow, slow-moving river.

Walk the Anhinga Trail, a raised boardwalk where alligators often rest right below your feet. Paddle a kayak through the mangrove tunnels near the coast. Take a ranger-led walk to spot herons, egrets, and roseate spoonbills wading in the shallows.