Why Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park spans 522,419 acres across eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in the southeastern United States. Protecting a major subrange of the Blue Ridge Mountains within the broader Appalachian chain, it is the most visited national park in the country, recording over 11 million visitors in 2025. The park straddles the state border, anchored by nearby communities such as Gatlinburg and Townsend in Tennessee, alongside Cherokee, Bryson City, Fontana Dam, and Maggie Valley in North Carolina. To the south, it borders an Indian reservation home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Characterized by temperate rainforests and dramatic elevation changes ranging from 875 feet to 6,643 feet at Kuwohi summit, the landscape features several of the highest peaks in eastern North America, including Mount Guyot and Mount Le Conte. Deep mountain valleys, locally known as coves, punctuate the range; Cades Cove is the largest, while others include Cataloochee, Elkmont, and Oconaluftee. The park contains around 2,900 miles of streams and over 100 prominent waterfalls. Notable cascades include the 100-foot Ramsey Cascades—the tallest in the park—and Rainbow Falls, an 80-foot single-drop waterfall along LeConte Creek, alongside Abrams Falls, Laurel Falls, and Grotto Falls.
As an internationally recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve, the park is celebrated as the most biologically diverse national park in the United States. Forests cover approximately 95 percent of the terrain, with up to a quarter recognized as ancient old-growth forest. The varied land supports roughly 19,000 documented species of organisms. Lower elevations feature deciduous hardwood forests, which give way to high-altitude coniferous spruce-fir woodlands. Flowering plants are exceptionally abundant, encompassing more than 1,500 species, including dozens of native orchids, violets, and members of the lily family.
Congress chartered the park in 1934, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicated it in 1940 as the first national park partially funded with federal money. In addition to its natural heritage, the park preserves historical structures from early European-American settlements. Maintained historic areas and listed sites include the Cades Cove, Elkmont, and Roaring Fork historic districts, as well as individual landmarks like Mingus Mill, the Mountain Farm Museum, Little Greenbrier School, and the Walker Sisters Place.
Primary vehicle access into the park is provided via U.S. Highway 441, also known as Newfound Gap Road, connecting Gatlinburg and Cherokee, as well as secondary entry points in Townsend. Long-distance hikers can follow the Appalachian Trail, which traverses the center of the park along its route between Georgia and Maine. The regional climate varies between humid subtropical and temperate oceanic zones, generating 50 to 80 inches of annual precipitation, heavy winter snow at upper elevations, and frequent morning temperature inversions in autumn.
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