Yellowstone National Park was inscribed by UNESCO in 1978 under criteria (vii) and (viii), becoming the United States' first World Heritage Site, credited for its geysers, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, waterfalls, wildlife, and its record of Earth's evolutionary history. Standard entrance costs $35 per vehicle for 7 days, with a separate $100 non-resident fee applying to visitors 16 and older who aren't US residents. Old Faithful, the park's famous geyser, is covered as a standalone landmark.
Yellowstone's 1978 inscription made it the first site in the United States added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, worth understanding as a documented historical marker separate from its earlier fame as the world's first designated national park in 1872, two distinct firsts, decades apart.
UNESCO's citation covers both Yellowstone's extraordinary scenic features, geysers, canyon, waterfalls, wildlife, and its significance for studying Earth's evolutionary history, worth understanding as two separate, documented reasons behind the listing.
Confirmed directly on the National Park Service's own fee page, this documented, separate charge applies to non-US residents 16 and older on top of the standard $35 vehicle fee, worth planning for explicitly if traveling to Yellowstone from outside the United States.
Yellowstone spans parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, with the most common entrances reached from Jackson, Wyoming, to the south or Bozeman, Montana, to the north.
Yellowstone's UNESCO story rests on being America's first World Heritage Site, credited for both scenery and Earth science, with a disclosed non-resident surcharge on top of the standard entrance fee. Old Faithful is covered in full below.
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