National park National Park in 1914. The UK waited until 1951 for the designation of its first national park, The Peak District National Park which sits at the southern end of the Pennine Hills surrounded by industrial cities. This followed perhaps 70 years of pressure for greater public access to the landscape. By the end of the decade a further 9 national parks had been designated. Europe has some 359 national parks as of 2010. Africa's first national park was established in 1925 when Albert I of Belgium designated an area of what is now Democratic Republic of Congo centred on the
Mapungubwe National Park 210 million years ago when one of the earliest plant-eating dinosaurs, Plateosauravus (Euskelosaurus), was known to have lived in the area. This section describes how Mapungubwe National Park became a national park. The Mapungubwe area became a focus of agricultural research in the 1920s through the efforts of a prominent botanist, Dr. I.B. Pole Evans. Pole Evans was instrumental in the creation of the Botanical Survey Advisory Committee which was tasked with coordinating botanical research throughout the Union of South Africa. One of the network of botanical and research stations set up by the Botanical Survey was situated in the