National Recreation Area

National Recreation Area (NRA) is a designation for a protected area in the United States.

History

Early National Recreation Areas were established by interagency memoranda of agreement between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the National Park Service. The first National Recreation Area was the Boulder Dam Recreation Area, later renamed Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

In 1963, the President's Recreation Advisory Committee issued an Executive Branch policy that established criteria for establishing National Recreation Areas. The policy also called for all future National Recreation Areas to be established by acts of the United States Congress. In 1964, Congress made Lake Mead National Recreation Area to first such area to be established by statute.

In 1965 Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area became the first NRA under the administration of the U.S. Forest Service. In 1972 Congress created Gateway National Recreation Area under the management of the National Park Service, thereby becoming the first "urban national park". One NRA, the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area was redesignated Cuyahoga Valley National Park in October 2000.

Recreation area

A recreation area is a type of protected area designated in some jurisdictions. In the United States, National Recreation Areas are administered by several different agencies. They typically do not meet the strict guidelines to become national parks. In U.S. state park systems, recreation areas may also fail to meet some criteria to be designated state parks, such as having a large number of non-contiguous properties. Size is not necessarily a defining criterion. For instance, in Michigan, the largest state recreation area, Waterloo Recreation Area is 20,500-acre (83 km²) while the smallest state park is the 31-acre (0.13 km²) Tri-Centennial State Park and Harbor.