Some of the most glorious places on Earth belong to you. These amazing sites are all part of our national park system.

For Geography Awareness Week, Nov. 11-17, The Mini Page takes you on a tour of a handful of America’s most beautiful and varied natural sites.

The Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona has deep canyons cut out by the Colorado River over millions of years. Its layers of rock go down as far as 6,000 feet and date from close to 2 billion years ago to today.

The park sits on the ancestral homelands of 11 present-day tribal communities, including the Havasupai and Navajo people.

Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska was covered by ice just 200 years ago.

The bay then was a small 5-mile break in a glacier that was 20 miles wide, 100 miles long and 4,000 feet thick in places. Only about one-fourth of that area is still under ice today.

Visitors to Glacier Bay might hear the howls of wolves, icebergs “burping,” humpback whales and harbor seals calling and moose grunting.

Assateague Island

Wind and waves are always building up or tearing down the land on Assateague (ASS-uh-teeg), off the shores of Virginia and Maryland. Storms can change the shoreline in a few hours.

Assateague is famous for its wild horses called Chincoteague ponies. They may be the descendants of horses brought over by Colonists in the 1600s.

The horses are not technically ponies; their short size comes from the salty diet they eat.

About 75 horses live on the island.

Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park, in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, is home to wildlife such as wolves and grizzly bears.

Yellowstone is best known for its hot springs and geysers (GUY-zerz).

A geyser is a fountain of boiling water and steam. Yellowstone has more than 1,200 geysers, of which about 465 are active in any given year.

Denali

The highest mountain in North America, Denali, at 20,310 feet, is in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. “Denali” means “high one” in the language of the Athabascan native people.

The park and preserve cover more than 6 million acres, with forests, tundra, glaciers and snow. Grizzly bears, wolves, caribou, Dall sheep and moose make their homes in the park, along with many species of smaller mammals and birds.

Dry Tortugas

Seven islands made of coral reefs and sand form the Dry Tortugas off the west coast of Florida.

“Tortugas” is Spanish for “sea turtles.” The islands were discovered by explorer Ponce de Leon in 1513. Explorers named them “dry” because they have no fresh water for drinking.

The park was established in 1992 to protect the islands and marine ecosystems surrounding them. Visitors must use seaplanes or ferries to access the islands; cars are not allowed.

Mini Fact: Visitors view the breathtaking Grand Canyon at sunset from Mather Point.