List of national historic sites and historical parks of the United States

After its founding in 1916, the National Park Service initially oversaw sites of primarily scenic and natural significance, including national parks and national monuments. Historians soon began recommending preservation of sites relating to human history. Congress created Colonial National Monument in 1930 to protect the Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown battlefield in Virginia as one of the first new historical areas, and it was renamed a national historical park in 1936. President Franklin D. Roosevelt reorganized the agency to also oversee memorials and military parks with historic significance later in 1933, substantially broadening the NPS's mandate. This expanded upon the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave the President the ability to order "the protection of objects of historic and scientific interest." The Historic Sites Act directed the National Park Service to survey historic sites which may be of national significance, as well as restore and acquire properties. The Historic American Buildings Survey began to document the country's architectural heritage and identify buildings for potential protection. Initially the Secretary of the Interior could designate national historic sites, though this did not include funding for acquisition or administration without congressional action. Salem Maritime National Historic Site was the first place to be preserved as a national historic site, created by Secretary Harold L. Ickes's secretarial order on March 17, 1938. It had followed his designation of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in 1935; many historic sites in the National Park System continue to be protected under different designation types. In the 1950s, the Mission 66 program revived historic studies that had lagged during World War II and saw the creation of the National Historic Landmarks program as a method to recognize important sites. From the 1960s to 1990s, the NPS evolved from a thematic framework, in which numerous specific themes and subthemes of American history were expected to each be included in some way in the system, to a conceptual framework, whereby both new and existing park units would be examined more holistically for ways to study history such as "creating social movements and institutions," "developing the American economy," and "peopling places." In the 20th century, potential new park units have been recommended not so much on "an orderly, balanced, and comprehensive" preservation of "outstanding examples", as Chief Historian Ronald Lee put it, but on those mandated to be studied by Congress, most of whose requests are recommended against by the NPS. But because most units contained a combination of natural, historic, and recreational lands, the General Authorities Act of 1970 made all areas equal within the National Park System; separate policy manuals for each were replaced in 1975 with one that would tailor policies in each park respective to the purpose of zones within. ==National Historic Sites==

National Historic Sites are generally federally owned and administered properties, though some remain under private or local government ownership. There are currently 85 NHSes, of which seventy-five are official NPS units, nine are NPS affiliated areas, and one is managed by the United States Forest Service. Derived from the Historic Sites Act of 1935, a number of NHSes were established by United States Secretaries of the Interior, but most have been authorized by acts of Congress. In 1937, the first NHS was created in Salem, Massachusetts, in order to preserve and interpret the maritime history of New England and the United States; in 2025 Salem Maritime NHS was redesignated as an NHP. National Historic Area There is one National Historic Area in the US park system, a unique designation given to the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area. International Historic Site There is one International Historic Site in the US park system, a unique designation given to Saint Croix Island, Maine, on the New Brunswick border. The title, given to the site of the first permanent French settlement in America, recognizes the influence that it has had on both Canada and the United States. The preservation and management policies of the NPS do not distinguish between these designations. Authorized Historic Sites The following site is not yet owned or formally developed by the National Park Service, but may eventually be owned and established as a national historic site. ==National Historical Parks==

National historical parks tend to be larger and more complex than national historic sites. In the United States, sites are "historic", while parks are "historical". The NPS explains that a site can be intrinsically historic, while a park is a modern legal invention. As such, a park is not itself "historic", but can be called "historical" when it contains historic resources. It is the resources which are historic, not the park. There are 64 national historical parks. International Historical Park Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park was formally established by the United States and Canada in 1998, the year of the centennial of the gold rush the park commemorates. The park comprises Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Washington and Alaska (above) and Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site in British Columbia. Tens of thousands of prospectors took this trail in hopes of making their fortunes in the Klondike River district of Yukon. ==See also==