Theodore Roosevelt created the first one, Devils Tower in Wyoming, in 1906. Every president since except three has added to the list. Here is every national monument currently standing, in alphabetical order.
1. Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska
Admiralty Island sits in the Tongass National Forest and is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
The island holds one of the highest densities of brown bears in North America, along with old growth rainforest that has never been logged.
2. African Burial Ground National Monument, New York
Located in Lower Manhattan, this monument protects a colonial era cemetery for both enslaved and free Africans, rediscovered during a 1991 construction project.
It is one of the largest and oldest known African burial grounds in North America.
3. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Nebraska
This monument in the Nebraska panhandle preserves fossil beds from the Miocene epoch, roughly 20 million years old.
It also holds a collection of Lakota artifacts gathered by rancher James Cook, who befriended Chief Red Cloud.
4. Agua Fria National Monument, Arizona
North of Phoenix, this Bureau of Land Management site protects grassland mesas and one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric pueblo sites in the Southwest.
More than 450 archaeological sites have been documented within its boundaries.
5. Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska
Aniakchak protects a six mile wide volcanic caldera on the Alaska Peninsula, formed by an eruption roughly 3,400 years ago.
It is one of the least visited units in the entire National Park System, reachable only by small plane or boat.
6. Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, Nevada
Designated in 2023, this monument protects Spirit Mountain, a peak sacred to at least a dozen Yuman and Colorado River tribes.
It also contains one of the largest and oldest Joshua tree forests in the Mojave Desert.
7. Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico
Despite the name, this site has no connection to the Aztec civilization. Early settlers simply misattributed the ruins.
The site is a Chacoan great house complex and includes the largest reconstructed kiva in North America.
8. Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, Arizona
Established by President Biden in 2023, this monument surrounds portions of Grand Canyon National Park and protects lands sacred to a coalition of tribal nations.
The name combines phrases from the Havasupai and Hopi languages, both meaning roughly “where our ancestors roamed.”
9. Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico
Bandelier protects cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins carved into volcanic tuff by Ancestral Puebloans between roughly 1150 and 1550.
Visitors can climb ladders into some of the alcove dwellings along the main canyon trail.
10. Basin and Range National Monument, Nevada
This remote monument protects a stretch of high desert basin and range topography in eastern Nevada.
It also contains Michael Heizer’s earthwork sculpture “City,” a large scale land art installation decades in the making.
11. Bears Ears National Monument, Utah
Named for a pair of twin buttes, this monument protects tens of thousands of archaeological sites important to five tribal nations.
Its boundaries have shifted repeatedly by presidential proclamation, making it one of the more debated designations on this list from a legal standpoint.
12. Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, Washington, D.C.
Housed in a townhouse near the U.S. Capitol, this monument was the longtime headquarters of the National Woman’s Party.
It tells the story of the suffrage movement and later fights for equal rights, led largely by Alice Paul.
13. Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, California
Co-managed by the Forest Service and BLM, this monument spans rugged terrain north of Napa Valley.
It supports one of the largest populations of golden eagles in North America.
14. Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Alabama
This monument includes the 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, and other sites central to the 1963 Birmingham campaign.
It was designated in the final days of the Obama administration alongside two other Civil Rights era monuments.
15. Booker T. Washington National Monument, Virginia
This site preserves the tobacco farm in Franklin County where Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856.
Costumed interpreters and a working farm illustrate daily life on a small antebellum farm.
16. Browns Canyon National Monument, Colorado
Browns Canyon protects a stretch of the Arkansas River corridor known for granite formations and whitewater rafting.
The Arkansas River here is one of the most rafted stretches of river in the country.
17. Buck Island Reef National Monument, U.S. Virgin Islands
Off the coast of St. Croix, this monument protects a coral reef ecosystem and nesting beaches for hawksbill and green sea turtles.
An underwater snorkeling trail with interpretive markers runs along part of the reef.
18. Cabrillo National Monument, California
Perched on Point Loma in San Diego, this monument marks the 1542 landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on the West Coast.
The site includes an old lighthouse and tide pools that draw visitors at low tide.
19. California Coastal National Monument, California
This monument protects thousands of small rocks, islands, and reefs along the entire California coastline, most too small to set foot on.
It was expanded in 2014 and again in 2017 to include additional onshore parcels.
20. Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument, Colorado
Camp Hale trained the Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II, soldiers who later helped launch the American ski industry.
President Biden designated the site in 2022, protecting both the military history and the surrounding high alpine terrain.
21. Camp Nelson National Monument, Kentucky
Camp Nelson served as a Union Army supply depot and later became one of the largest recruitment and training centers for formerly enslaved men joining the U.S. Colored Troops.
Thousands of freed families also settled in a refugee camp on the grounds.
22. Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona
Entirely within the Navajo Nation, this monument protects red rock canyons that have been continuously inhabited for nearly 5,000 years.
Navajo families still farm and graze livestock within the canyon, and visitors need a Navajo guide to explore most of it.
23. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado
This BLM site in southwest Colorado holds the highest known density of archaeological sites in the country, with over 6,000 documented.
The Anasazi Heritage Center nearby serves as the visitor hub for the monument.
24. Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Alaska
North of the Arctic Circle, this monument protects a series of beach ridges that have recorded roughly 9,000 years of human habitation.
Iñupiat communities still hunt and fish across the monument today.
25. Capulin Volcano National Monument, New Mexico
A road spirals to the rim of this well preserved cinder cone volcano, which last erupted roughly 60,000 years ago.
On clear days, visitors can see into four states from the summit trail.
26. Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument, Pennsylvania
Designated in late 2024, this monument marks the site of the first off-reservation boarding school for Native American children, opened in 1879.
It documents a system that separated Indigenous children from their families and languages for generations.
27. Carrizo Plain National Monument, California
The Carrizo Plain hosts California’s largest native grassland remnant and, in wet years, an intense springtime wildflower bloom.
Soda Lake, a seasonal alkali lake, sits at the center of the monument.
28. Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects a four story earthen structure built by the Hohokam people around 1350.
It was the first archaeological site in the United States to receive federal protection, back in 1892.
29. Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Oregon and California
This monument sits at a rare biological crossroads where the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Klamath mountain ranges meet.
That overlap gives it an unusually high diversity of butterfly and conifer species for its size.
30. Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, Florida
Built by Spain between 1672 and 1695, this is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.
Its coquina stone walls, made of compressed shell, famously absorbed cannon fire rather than shattering.
31. Castle Clinton National Monument, New York
Originally built as a fort in Manhattan’s Battery Park, this circular structure later served as an immigration processing center before Ellis Island opened.
Roughly 8 million immigrants passed through it between 1855 and 1890.
32. Castle Mountains National Monument, California
This monument protects a Mojave Desert grassland surrounded by, but separate from, Mojave National Preserve.
It shelters desert bighorn sheep and one of the largest Joshua tree woodlands in the region.
33. Castner Range National Monument, Texas
Once an Army artillery and training range near El Paso, this site was designated a monument in 2023 after decades of unexploded ordnance cleanup.
It protects a Chihuahuan Desert landscape and a springtime bloom of Mexican gold poppies.
34. Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah
A natural amphitheater carved into the Markagunt Plateau, Cedar Breaks reaches over 10,000 feet in elevation.
Its eroded limestone formations echo nearby Bryce Canyon but draw far fewer visitors.
35. César E. Chávez National Monument, California
Located at the former United Farm Workers headquarters known as Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz, this monument honors the labor leader’s life and organizing work.
Chávez is buried on the grounds alongside a memorial garden.
36. Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, Ohio
This monument preserves the home of Colonel Charles Young, the third Black graduate of West Point and the highest ranking Black officer in the Army for decades.
It tells the broader story of the Buffalo Soldiers, the segregated Army units Young served alongside.
37. Chimney Rock National Monument, Colorado
Chimney Rock protects a pair of rock spires that Ancestral Puebloans aligned their ceremonial buildings toward, tracking a rare lunar event known as a major lunar standstill.
Archaeologists consider it one of the most significant astronomical sites in the Southwest.
38. Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona
Nicknamed the “Wonderland of Rocks,” this monument protects rhyolite spires and balanced rocks formed by an ancient volcanic eruption.
The Chiricahua Apache, led at times by Cochise, used the terrain as a stronghold in the 1800s.
39. Chuckwalla National Monument, California
Designated in January 2025, Chuckwalla protects Colorado Desert terrain adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park.
It is named for the chuckwalla lizard, a large desert reptile common to its rocky slopes.
40. Colorado National Monument, Colorado
This monument protects a canyon and mesa landscape carved into red sandstone above Grand Junction.
Rim Rock Drive, a scenic road built largely by hand in the 1930s, winds along the canyon edge.
41. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Idaho
This monument protects a vast lava field from the Great Rift volcanic zone, with cinder cones, caves, and hardened flows.
Apollo astronauts trained here in the 1960s because of its resemblance to the lunar surface.
42. Devils Postpile National Monument, California
Near Mammoth Lakes, this monument protects columns of basalt rock formed as ancient lava cooled and cracked into hexagonal shapes.
The nearby Rainbow Falls is a popular add on hike for visitors.
43. Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
Devils Tower was the first national monument in the country, proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
The 867 foot igneous column is sacred to several Northern Plains tribes and is a popular technical rock climbing destination.
44. Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah
This monument protects a fossil quarry where more than 1,500 dinosaur bones remain embedded in a rock wall visitors can view up close.
It also includes deep river canyons carved by the Green and Yampa rivers.
45. Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa
Along the Mississippi River bluffs, this monument protects more than 200 prehistoric mounds, some shaped like bears and birds.
They were built by Woodland era Native American cultures over roughly 2,500 years.
46. El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico
El Malpais, Spanish for “the badlands,” protects a volcanic field of lava flows, cinder cones, and lava tube caves.
Ice caves within the lava tubes stay cold enough to hold ice year round.
47. El Morro National Monument, New Mexico
A sandstone bluff here holds centuries of inscriptions, from Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs to Spanish conquistadors to 19th century American emigrants.
A reliable pool of water at its base made the site a natural waypoint for travelers.
48. Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, Mississippi and Illinois
Designated in 2023, this monument spans three sites tied to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till and his mother’s decision to hold an open casket funeral.
That decision helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement across the country.
49. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado
This monument protects fossilized insects, leaves, and giant petrified redwood stumps preserved in ancient lake sediment.
Some of the petrified stumps measure over 12 feet across.
50. Fort Frederica National Monument, Georgia
Founded by James Oglethorpe in 1736 on St. Simons Island, this fort helped defend the young colony of Georgia from Spanish Florida.
Today the site preserves the excavated foundations of the fort and surrounding colonial town.
51. Fort Matanzas National Monument, Florida
This small coquina stone watchtower guarded the southern approach to St. Augustine starting in 1742.
A short passenger ferry, included with admission, is the only way to reach the fort itself.
52. Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland
Francis Scott Key watched this fort withstand a night of British bombardment in 1814, inspiring “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
It is the only site in the National Park System designated a “national monument and historic shrine.”
53. Fort Monroe National Monument, Virginia
Fort Monroe is where, in 1861, enslaved men escaping to Union lines were declared “contraband of war,” a legal workaround that undermined slavery’s protection under law.
The moated stone fort itself is the largest in the country by area.
54. Fort Ord National Monument, California
Once a major Army training base on the Monterey Peninsula, this land is now managed by the BLM for hiking and mountain biking across coastal chaparral.
Old cantonment roads on the base have been converted into a network of multi use trails.
55. Fort Pulaski National Monument, Georgia
Fort Pulaski guards the mouth of the Savannah River and is best known for its role in an 1862 Union bombardment that proved brick forts obsolete against rifled cannon.
The fort’s walls still show the damage from that engagement.
56. Fort Stanwix National Monument, New York
This reconstructed Revolutionary War fort in Rome, New York, withstood a lengthy 1777 siege that helped block a British invasion route from Canada.
The fort also hosted an earlier treaty negotiation with the Iroquois Confederacy in 1768.
57. Fort Union National Monument, New Mexico
Fort Union protected travelers and traders along the Santa Fe Trail and was, at its peak, the largest military post in the Southwest.
Only adobe ruins and building outlines remain, spread across a wide grassland site.
58. Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming
This monument protects an exceptionally detailed fossil record from a 50 million year old lake bed, including fish, plants, and even bats.
The visitor center displays some of the most finely preserved fossil fish in the world.
59. Frances Perkins National Monument, Maine
Designated in late 2024, this monument protects the family homestead of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a U.S. Cabinet.
As Secretary of Labor, she helped design Social Security and other Depression era labor policies.
60. Freedom Riders National Monument, Alabama
This monument in Anniston marks the site where a Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders was firebombed in 1961.
It also includes the former Greyhound station downtown, tied to the same violent day.
61. George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia
This site along the Potomac marks the plantation where George Washington was born in 1732, though the original house no longer stands.
A colonial style farm on the grounds gives visitors a sense of 18th century Tidewater life.
62. George Washington Carver National Monument, Missouri
This monument preserves the farm where Carver was born into slavery and later became a pioneering scientist and educator.
It was the first national monument dedicated to a Black American and to someone other than a president.
63. Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Managed by the Forest Service, this monument protects roughly half of the world’s remaining giant sequoia groves.
Some of the trees inside its boundaries are more than 3,000 years old.
64. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico
Tucked into natural cave alcoves, these dwellings were built and briefly occupied by the Mogollon people in the late 1200s.
A loop trail lets visitors climb up into the rooms themselves.
65. Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada
This monument protects red sandstone formations, desert tortoise habitat, and rock art panels near Lake Mead.
Falling Man petroglyph, one of its best known rock art sites, is thought to be several thousand years old.
66. Governors Island National Monument, New York
This monument preserves two historic forts on Governors Island in New York Harbor, Fort Jay and Castle Williams.
The island itself is now largely run as a public park by New York City, with the monument as one component.
67. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Arizona
This remote monument sits along the Grand Canyon’s north rim and is jointly managed by the National Park Service and BLM.
It has almost no paved roads and remains one of the least developed parts of the National Park System.
68. Grand Portage National Monument, Minnesota
This monument preserves an 8.5 mile portage trail used by Ojibwe people and later fur traders to bypass a stretch of unnavigable river.
A reconstructed fur trade depot sits at the Lake Superior end of the trail.
69. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah
This vast monument protects a stepped sequence of cliffs and plateaus, along with one of the richest dinosaur fossil records in the country.
Several dinosaur species new to science have been identified from fossils found here.
70. Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, Idaho
This monument is best known for Hagerman horse fossils, an extinct Ice Age species related to the modern zebra.
More than 200 individual horse fossils have been recovered from a single bone bed here.
71. Hanford Reach National Monument, Washington
This monument protects the last free flowing, non tidal stretch of the Columbia River, along with shrub steppe habitat that once surrounded the Hanford nuclear site.
Because the surrounding land was off limits for decades, it preserved habitat that vanished elsewhere in the region.
72. Hovenweep National Monument, Utah and Colorado
Hovenweep protects a cluster of Ancestral Puebloan towers and villages built around canyon rims in the 1200s.
Its dark skies also make it a certified International Dark Sky Park.
73. Ironwood Forest National Monument, Arizona
This BLM site protects one of the densest stands of ironwood trees in the Sonoran Desert, a slow growing species that can live over 1,000 years.
The monument also shelters endangered bighorn sheep populations.
74. Jewel Cave National Monument, South Dakota
Jewel Cave is one of the longest caves mapped in the world, with hundreds of miles of surveyed passages.
Its name comes from the calcite crystals lining many of its chambers.
75. John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon
This monument protects colorful, banded badlands known as the Painted Hills alongside one of the most complete fossil records of plant and animal evolution over 40 million years.
The Painted Hills unit is one of the most photographed landscapes in Oregon.
76. Jurassic National Monument, Utah
Formerly known as Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, this site has produced more Allosaurus fossils than any other location on Earth.
Researchers still debate why so many predators ended up concentrated in one place.
77. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico
This monument protects cone shaped rock formations, or hoodoos, carved from volcanic ash and pumice deposits.
A narrow slot canyon trail leads visitors up between the tent shaped rocks to a mesa overlook.
78. Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Maine
This monument protects forestland and river corridors east of Baxter State Park, donated to the federal government by conservationist Roxanne Quimby in 2016.
It offers views of Mount Katahdin from a different angle than the more visited park next door.
79. Lava Beds National Monument, California
This monument protects hundreds of lava tube caves formed by eruptions from the nearby Medicine Lake volcano.
It was also the site of the 1872 to 1873 Modoc War, fought partly within the lava rock stronghold known as Captain Jack’s Stronghold.
80. Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana
This monument preserves the site of the 1876 battle in which Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho forces defeated Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s cavalry.
Headstones mark where individual soldiers fell across the battlefield hillside.
81. Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, Northern Mariana Islands
This monument protects waters around the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world’s oceans.
It includes underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents that support unusual chemical based ecosystems.
82. Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, Mississippi
This monument preserves the Jackson, Mississippi home where civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963.
His wife, Myrlie Evers, continued civil rights advocacy for decades afterward.
83. Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument, Kentucky
This monument protects the site of an 1862 Civil War battle, an early Union victory that helped secure Kentucky.
The battlefield remains largely rural, with interpretive trails across the original ground.
84. Misty Fiords National Monument, Alaska
Near Ketchikan, this monument protects steep granite fjords, waterfalls, and old growth rainforest within the Tongass National Forest.
Most visitors see it by floatplane or boat tour, since it has almost no road access.
85. Mojave Trails National Monument, California
This monument protects one of the longest remaining undeveloped stretches of Route 66, along with lava flows and sand dunes across the Mojave Desert.
Ancient petroglyphs at Sloan Canyon and other sites reflect thousands of years of Indigenous presence in the area.
86. Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona
Despite the name, this cliff dwelling has no connection to Montezuma. Early American settlers assumed it was Aztec built and named it accordingly.
The five story dwelling was built by the Sinagua people around 1100.
87. Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Washington
This monument protects the blast zone from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, one of the most closely studied volcanic events in U.S. history.
Scientists have tracked how plants and animals recolonized the devastated landscape in the decades since.
88. Muir Woods National Monument, California
Just north of San Francisco, this monument protects one of the last old growth coast redwood groves in the Bay Area.
It was donated to the federal government in 1908 by William and Elizabeth Kent, who insisted it be named for conservationist John Muir.
89. Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah
This monument protects three large natural stone bridges carved by streams in White Canyon.
It was the first International Dark Sky Park designated anywhere in the world.
90. Navajo National Monument, Arizona
Entirely surrounded by the Navajo Nation, this monument protects three well preserved cliff dwellings, including Betatakin and Keet Seel.
Keet Seel requires a permitted, ranger led hike of several miles each way to visit.
91. Newberry National Volcanic Monument, Oregon
This monument surrounds the Newberry Volcano, a massive shield volcano with obsidian flows, lava caves, and two mountain lakes inside its caldera.
The Big Obsidian Flow here is one of the youngest lava flows in the continental United States.
92. Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Atlantic Ocean
This monument protects deep sea canyons and underwater mountains off the New England coast, home to cold water corals that can live for centuries.
It was the first marine national monument designated in the Atlantic.
93. Oregon Caves National Monument, Oregon
Nicknamed the “Marble Halls of Oregon,” this monument protects a marble cave system in the Siskiyou Mountains.
Guided tours wind through narrow passages and chambers formed by dissolving marble rather than limestone.
94. Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico
This monument protects jagged granite spires near Las Cruces along with several isolated desert mountain ranges.
Fossilized footprints and rock art across the monument point to thousands of years of human use.
95. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects the largest concentration of organ pipe cactus in the United States, a species otherwise common mainly in Mexico.
It sits directly along the international border in the Sonoran Desert.
96. Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, Pacific Ocean
This monument protects waters around several uninhabited islands and atolls scattered across the central Pacific.
Some of the reefs here are considered among the most pristine and least disturbed in the world.
97. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawaii
This monument protects a chain of remote islands and atolls stretching northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands.
It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest protected marine areas on Earth.
98. Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico
On the western edge of Albuquerque, this monument protects an estimated 24,000 petroglyphs carved into volcanic rock.
Many images date back 400 to 700 years, made by Ancestral Puebloan and later Spanish settlers.
99. Pipe Spring National Monument, Arizona
This monument preserves a natural spring long used by the Kaibab Paiute Tribe and later a fortified ranch built by Mormon settlers.
The spring still flows through the historic fort building today.
100. Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota
This monument protects quarries where Native Americans have carved ceremonial pipes from red pipestone for centuries.
Enrolled tribal members still hold permits to quarry the stone by hand using traditional methods.
101. Pompeys Pillar National Monument, Montana
This sandstone butte along the Yellowstone River bears the only remaining physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition along its route: William Clark’s carved signature from 1806.
A boardwalk protects the carving while still letting visitors view it up close.
102. Poverty Point National Monument, Louisiana
Poverty Point protects massive earthen mounds and ridges built by a hunter gatherer society around 1700 BCE, long before agriculture reached the region.
The site is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, run day to day as a Louisiana state park.
103. Prehistoric Trackways National Monument, New Mexico
This BLM site near Las Cruces protects fossilized footprints left by reptiles and amphibians roughly 280 million years ago.
The tracks were preserved in what was once a coastal tidal flat, long before dinosaurs existed.
104. President Lincoln and Soldiers’ Home National Monument, Washington, D.C.
Lincoln and his family spent roughly a quarter of his presidency living at this cottage, using it as a retreat from the White House.
He is believed to have drafted portions of the Emancipation Proclamation while staying here.
105. Rainbow Bridge National Monument, Utah
This monument protects one of the largest known natural rock bridges in the world, sacred to several Southwestern tribes.
Most visitors reach it by boat across Lake Powell followed by a short trail.
106. Río Grande del Norte National Monument, New Mexico
This monument protects a volcanic plateau cut by the Rio Grande Gorge, which drops nearly 800 feet in places.
A bridge over the gorge near Taos offers one of the most dramatic overlooks in the state.
107. Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, American Samoa
This is the smallest emergent land unit in the entire National Wildlife Refuge System, built around a nearly circular coral atoll.
It is an important nesting site for seabirds and green sea turtles in the South Pacific.
108. Russell Cave National Monument, Alabama
This monument protects a cave shelter used by prehistoric people for roughly 10,000 years, one of the most complete records of human habitation in the Southeast.
Archaeological digs here uncovered layered evidence spanning thousands of years of continuous use.
109. Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, New Mexico
This monument protects the ruins of three 17th century Spanish mission churches built alongside existing pueblo communities.
The combination of pueblo and mission ruins at each site reflects the encounter between Spanish and Puebloan cultures.
110. San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, California
This monument protects steep mountain terrain just north of Los Angeles, a rare stretch of accessible wilderness for a dense urban region.
It supplies roughly a third of the drinking water used in Los Angeles County.
111. San Juan Islands National Monument, Washington
This monument protects a scattered collection of small islands, headlands, and reefs across the San Juan archipelago.
Many parcels are accessible only by boat or kayak, keeping the monument lightly visited.
112. Sand to Snow National Monument, California
This monument spans an unusually wide elevation range, from low desert washes up to the alpine slopes of Mount San Gorgonio.
That range supports an equally wide mix of desert and mountain plant and animal life within one protected area.
113. Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, California
This monument protects mountains rising sharply above the Coachella Valley, home to peninsular bighorn sheep.
An aerial tram in nearby Palm Springs climbs partway into the monument’s high country.
114. Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, California
Designated in January 2025, this monument protects a volcanic highland region considered sacred by the Pit River Tribe and other Indigenous communities.
The area contains springs, lava tube caves, and forested plateaus in far northern California.
115. Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska
This bluff served as a landmark for travelers on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails, visible for days before wagon trains reached it.
Wheel ruts from those trails are still visible near the base of the bluff.
116. Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, Illinois
This monument, designated in 2024, marks sites tied to a violent 1908 attack on Black residents in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield.
The riot is often cited as a catalyst for the founding of the NAACP the following year.
117. Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona
South of Phoenix, this monument protects a large stretch of Sonoran Desert with three distinct mountain ranges rising from the desert floor.
It contains a dense cover of saguaro cactus alongside remnants of historic trails and rock art.
118. Statue of Liberty National Monument, New York and New Jersey
Dedicated in 1886, this monument protects one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States, a gift from France.
It also includes Ellis Island, where millions of immigrants were processed after arriving by ship.
119. Stonewall National Monument, New York
Designated in 2016, this monument protects the site of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, widely seen as a turning point for the LGBTQ rights movement.
It was the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ history.
120. Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects a cinder cone volcano that erupted roughly 900 years ago, reshaping the surrounding landscape and Sinagua farming communities.
Lava flows and cinder fields nearby remain largely bare of vegetation even centuries later.
121. Timpanogos Cave National Monument, Utah
This monument protects a series of connected caves known for dense formations of helictites, delicate mineral growths that twist in unusual directions.
Reaching the cave entrance requires a steep paved trail climbing over 1,000 feet.
122. Tonto National Monument, Arizona
Overlooking Roosevelt Lake, this monument protects two well preserved cliff dwellings built by the Salado people in the early 1300s.
The lower dwelling is open for self guided visits, while the upper dwelling requires a ranger led hike.
123. Tule Lake National Monument, California
This monument preserves the site of the largest and most controversial Japanese American incarceration camp of World War II.
Thousands of Japanese Americans deemed “disloyal” under a wartime questionnaire were held here under harsh conditions.
124. Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, Nevada
Just outside Las Vegas, this monument protects fossils from the Ice Age, including mammoths, camels, and ancient horses.
Its fossil beds have been studied since the 1930s and continue to yield new specimens.
125. Tuzigoot National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects the ruins of a hilltop pueblo built by the Sinagua people, occupied from roughly 1000 to 1400.
At its peak the pueblo held around 110 rooms across two stories.
126. Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Montana
This monument protects a long, largely undeveloped stretch of the Missouri River that Lewis and Clark once traveled through.
The river corridor here looks much as it did in the early 1800s, with badlands and sandstone cliffs lining the banks.
127. Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects the Wave, a swirling sandstone formation that has become one of the most sought after and permit restricted hikes in the Southwest.
California condors, reintroduced to the wild, nest on the cliffs within the monument.
128. Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, U.S. Virgin Islands
This monument protects submerged coral reef and seagrass habitat just offshore from Virgin Islands National Park on St. John.
It provides a buffer zone that supports reef fish, sea turtles, and other marine life along the coastline.
129. Waco Mammoth National Monument, Texas
This monument protects the fossilized remains of a herd of Columbian mammoths that died together roughly 65,000 years ago.
A dig shelter over the site lets visitors view fossils still positioned as they were found in the ground.
130. Walnut Canyon National Monument, Arizona
Sinagua people built cliff dwellings into limestone alcoves along this canyon around 1100.
A loop trail with roughly 240 steps leads visitors past dozens of the dwelling rooms.
131. World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Hawaii, California, and Alaska
This monument spans several separate sites tied to the Pacific theater of World War II, including the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
It also includes a battlefield unit in the Aleutian Islands, where Japanese forces briefly occupied U.S. territory.
132. Wupatki National Monument, Arizona
This monument protects a cluster of red sandstone pueblos built by ancestors of today’s Hopi and Zuni peoples, some with over 100 rooms.
A ballcourt at the site suggests trade and cultural contact with communities as far away as Mesoamerica.
133. Yucca House National Monument, Colorado
This monument protects an unexcavated Ancestral Puebloan settlement, deliberately left mostly buried to preserve it for future study.
There are no developed trails or facilities, and few visitors make the trip.