Best of · national parks
The 13 Most Beautiful National Parks in the World
13 places · every one real, mapped, and worth the trip
The national park is one of humanity's better ideas — setting aside a landscape whole, so its mountains, forests, reefs, and wildlife stay protected and open to everyone. The finest combine world-class scenery with the infrastructure to actually explore it.
This is our pick of the most beautiful protected parks in the atlas — all real, mapped places with trails, viewpoints, or waters you can experience. Each guide notes the best season and how to reach it, and how to visit responsibly.
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Torres del Paine Patagonia
Magallanes, Chilean Patagonia
Chile's flagship park, where blue granite towers soar above glaciers, lakes, and steppe — home to the famous 'W' and full-circuit treks and roaming guanaco and puma.
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Yala National Park Highest leopard density
Southern and Uva Provinces, southeastern Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan dry-zone scrub and lagoons thought to hold more leopards per square kilometre than anywhere else on Earth.
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Banff & Moraine Lake Canadian Rockies
Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Canada's first national park, of turquoise glacial lakes ringed by snow peaks — Moraine and Louise among the most photographed views in North America.
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Plitvice Lakes Europe
Lika, central Croatia
A Croatian park of sixteen terraced lakes linked by waterfalls and boardwalks, the water an unreal turquoise over pale travertine.
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Milford Sound
Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand
The jewel of New Zealand's Fiordland, a glacier-carved fjord of sheer cliffs and plunging waterfalls, at its most dramatic in the rain.
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Kruger National Park
Mpumalanga & Limpopo, South Africa
One of Africa's great game reserves, vast enough for self-drive safaris among the 'big five' across classic South African bushveld.
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Tongariro National Park
Central Plateau, North Island, New Zealand
New Zealand's oldest national park, a volcanic landscape of craters and emerald lakes crossed by the celebrated Alpine Crossing day hike.
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Jiuzhaigou
Sichuan Province, China
A Chinese valley of impossibly blue and green terraced lakes, travertine waterfalls, and autumn colour beneath snow peaks.
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Komodo National Park
Lesser Sunda Islands, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
An Indonesian park of dry islands and rich reefs, the only home of the Komodo dragon and a magnet for divers drawn to its manta channels.
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Manú National Park
Madre de Dios & Cusco, southeastern Peru
One of the most biodiverse places on Earth, dropping from the high Andes into pristine Amazon rainforest in Peru — a birder's and naturalist's dream.
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Zhangjiajie (Wulingyuan)
Hunan Province, China
A Chinese park of thousands of sheer sandstone pillars rising from the mist, the landscape that inspired the floating mountains of Avatar.
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The Everglades
Florida, United States
A vast 'river of grass' in Florida, a subtropical wetland of sawgrass, mangroves, and cypress, home to alligators, manatees, and wading birds.
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Krka National Park
Šibenik-Knin County, Dalmatia, Croatia
A Croatian park where the Krka river tumbles over a series of broad travertine cascades through wooded gorges — greener and quieter than its famous neighbour.
Parks reward an early start and the shoulder seasons, when wildlife is active and the trails are quieter. Each guide notes the best window and how to reach it — and remember the park-goer's rule: take only photos, leave only footprints.
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