Natural Creations: National Park of Yosemite

snow, winter, Yosemite National Park, California

Yosemite National Park is a World's Biggest and Very Famous U.S. national park that stretches across eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, USA. The park covers an area of 761,268 hectares (3,080.74 km2), stretching across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. More than 3.7 million people visit Yosemite each year: most spend their time in the seven square miles (18 km2) of Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite National Park, California, USA

Named a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness. Although not the first designated national park, Yosemite was central to the development of the national park idea, largely because of the work of people like Galen Clark and John Muir. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has a height ranging from 2,127 to 13,114 feet (648 to 3997 m) and contains five major vegetation zones: Chaparral / oak forest, lower Montane, Upper Montane, subalpine and alpine. Of California's 7,000 plant species occur around 50% in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% within Yosemite. There is suitable habitat or documentation for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants absorb.