Fiordland National Park

Fiordland National Park occupies the southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand. It is by far the largest of the 13 national parks in New Zealand, with an area of , and a major part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Site. The park is administered by the Department of Conservation. of Fiordland were set aside as a national reserve in 1904, following suggestions by then-future Prime Minister Thomas Mackenzie and Southland Commissioner of Crown Lands, John Hay, that the region should be declared a national park. The area had already become a destination for trampers, following the opening up of the Milford Track from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound in 1889 by New Zealand explorers Quintin McKinnon and Donald Sutherland, which received significant publicity from a 1908 article in the London Spectator describing it as the "Finest Walk in the World". The Fiordland "public reserve" was created as a park administered by the Department of Lands and Survey - in practical terms similar to a National Park. The only two officially named "national parks" in New Zealand at the time, Tongariro National Park and Egmont National Park, were administered by park boards. Consolidation of the management of these parks led to the National Parks Act of 1952, which brought Fiordland National Park into the fold, formally making it the third National Park in New Zealand.