A national park is an area set aside for wildlife preservation, and where governments try to restrict development. Most have public access, which is why they are called 'parks'.

Many countries have national parks, and they vary a lot in what they look like. Some national parks are simply areas of beautiful countryside where many people already live, but where planning laws mean that most of it has to be left as it is. The English Lake District National Park is like this. That is because the area was made into a park after it had been developed.

Other countries were able to declare wilderness areas as national parks because they had not been developed when the laws were made. Many parks in the USA are like this, for example, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Yosemite.