Badlands National Park

About this place

Badlands National Park is a national park in southwestern South Dakota, about 76 km east of Rapid City in a straight line. It protects about 982 square kilometres of sharply eroded buttes and pinnacles, along with the largest undisturbed mixed-grass prairie in the United States. The park lies in the White River basin; the Badlands Wilderness in its North Unit protects over 259 square kilometres and is one of the places where the black-footed ferret, one of the world's most endangered mammals, was reintroduced. The South Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Lakota tribe. The area was authorised as a national monument in 1929, established in 1939 and made a national park in 1978. Conical hills and carved gullies banded in grey, golden yellow, pink and red stretch to the horizon, broken by golden grassland, their colours shifting with the sun and glowing at sunrise and sunset. Visitors drive the park's loop road, stopping at viewpoints, and walk short trails among the formations, where they may see bison and prairie dogs. Summers are hot, so carry water.