Wind Cave National Park is a United States national park 10 miles (16 km) north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh U.S. National Park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its displays of the calcite formation known as boxwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world's discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave. Wind Cave is also known for its frostwork. The cave is also considered a three-dimensional maze cave, recognized as the densest (most passage volume per cubic mile) cave system in the world. The cave is currently the fifth-longest in the world with 137.02 miles (220.51 km) of explored cave passageways, with an average of four new miles of cave being discovered each year.^{[citation needed]} Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States.

The Lakota (Sioux), Indigenous People who live in the Black Hills of South Dakota, spoke of a hole that blew air, a place they consider sacred as the site where The Lakota first emerged from the underworld where they lived before the demiurge creation of the world.