# National Parks in the "Old World"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 3, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394 "2014-09-03T18:57:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/21 "2014-09-05T18:13:06Z")
> [@Telemark](#):
>
> [Lists of national parks - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks)
>
> There are plenty, but it’s a fairly new concept overall. No one lived anywhere near the US parks, but people had lived in areas of Europe for centuries.
Not so in all cases, there were people living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia when Shenandoah National Park was created. They were displaced by the government and in many cases had no idea about the plan for the park until they were sent letters to vacate. My ex-wife’s mother was from the Cave family and lived up there.
> **[Time to Leave](https://virginialiving.com/uncategorized/time-to-leave/)**
>
> Some one million people visit Shenandoah National Park annually, so clearly its creation in the 1930s has had a lasting impact. But it’s not as well known that some 500 families were forced to move off their land to make way for the park.
[http://www.readthehook.com/98743/mountain-folk-maligned-pork-propaganda-and-creation-cool-national-park](http://www.readthehook.com/98743/mountain-folk-maligned-pork-propaganda-and-creation-cool-national-park)
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### Author:  [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/22 "2014-09-05T18:57:32Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#):
>
> I know there are national parks in Canada, too, and various African countries, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone mentioning going any place similar in Europe or Asia. Do they not exist? Was everything already ‘developed’ before the idea of setting aside natural land for the public came along ?
[Korea has national parks](http://english.knps.or.kr/) with great hiking.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/23 "2014-09-05T21:16:25Z")
I asked my friend from the Phillipines and he said years ago they had some but after martial law it was stopped.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/24 "2014-09-05T23:29:35Z")
France has many national parks, but even though the country is less densely populated than the rest of western Europe, they are quite similar to what was described above re. the UK. They’re much smaller than what an American might have in mind, and aren’t “wilderness”. They include villages, roads, etc…
There’s not much “national park culture”, either. People don’t go to national parks for vacations. They visit whatever is worth seeing when they happen to be in the area. For instance for a day.
There’s not much camping culture, either. When people camp, it’s in established campgrounds, with amenities (and more and more of them recently), and not to be alone in the wild, but to be near the beach resort or whatever for cheap.
The only people actually camping the “American way” are youngsters wanting to avoid having to pay for accomodations. And even then, it isn’t extremely common. You don’t have the kind of family camping in the wild depicted in American movies, for instance. And besides, lacking roaming laws (except on the seashore) in France, this kind of camping (called in French “wild camping” which is understood as meaning “camping in a not recognized way” not “camping in the wild”) isn’t legal without the land owner agreement, and is generally very discouraged (and I would suspect even more so in national parks, in fact).
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/25 "2014-09-06T00:04:57Z")
> [@UDS](#):
>
> Royal National Park was established by the colony of New South Wales, which became a state of Australia in 1901, but it’s still owned and managed by the state government, not the federal government. The name is a little odd, since there is no earthly way in which anyone in 1879 thought that New South Wales was a “nation”. Or is today, for that matter…
For different reasons provincially operated parks in [Quebec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protected_areas_of_Quebec) are called national parks. This isn’t just confined to parks; the provincial legislature is the _National_ Assembly of Quebec.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2014, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/26 "2014-09-06T00:10:49Z")
Plenty in Africa. China and India as well.
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### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-parks-in-the-old-world/697394/27 "2014-09-07T15:38:23Z")
Korea has [21 of them](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_South_Korea). There are lots of stores in the big cities dedicated to hiking gear and clothing.
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