Kentucky Has World’s Largest Network of Natural Caves

Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky offers visitors a parallel universe of spectacular underground formations whose beauty rivals that of any landscape above ground. The park contains the world’s largest network of natural caves and shelters more than 130 species — including specialized creatures that can live nowhere else.

Beneath the surface of south-central Kentucky is a world that is unparalleled: the largest network of natural caves and underground formations on Earth. Archeological evidence indicates that this cave system was explored by aboriginal people 2,000–4,000 years ago, but exploration resumed only with the cave’s rediscovery in 1798.

Mammoth Cave was authorized as a U.S. national park in 1926 and fully established in 1941. Since 1816, visitors have enjoyed the cave’s spectacular natural features and the park’s surface trails and waterways. The 52,830-acre (21,379-hectare) park also contains the planet’s most diverse cave ecosystem, which is home to more than 130 species — including specialized cave dwellers that can live nowhere else, such as Kentucky cave shrimp.

The park reveals a number of stages of Earth’s evolutionary history and ongoing geological processes. In 1981, Mammoth Cave National Park was designated as a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)