Banff National Park (French: Le Parc national Banff), established in 1885, is the oldest national park in Canada. It is located in the northern section of the Rocky Mountains, about 110-180 km west of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The park covers a total of 6,641 square kilometres of glaciers, ice fields, pine forests and mountains. The Icefields Highway begins at Lake Louise and connects to Jasper National Park in the north. To the west is the Provincial Forest and Youghal National Park, to the south is bordered by Kootenay National Park, and the town of Kananaskis is located to its southeast. The main commercial area in Banff National Park is the town of Banff in the Bow River Valley. It is part of the Canadian Rockies Natural Park Complex and is on the World Heritage List, along with other national and provincial parks in the Canadian Rockies.
Banff National Park is located west of Alberta, bordering British Columbia. Banff is about an hour and a half from Calgary and about four hours from Edmonton. To the north is Jasper National Park, to the west is Phantom Crane National Park, and to the south is Kootenay National Park. Kananaskis, including Bow River Mountain Road Wilderness Provincial Park, Spree Valley Provincial Park and Peterlochid Provincial Park is located southeast of Banff. The Trans-Canada Highway passes through Banff National Park, starting at the eastern boundary at Canmore and crossing Banff and Lake Louise to reach the Phantom Crane National Park in British Columbia. The town of Banff is the main commercial area in the park. The Lake Louise Valley is located at the junction of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Icefields Highway, with the town of Jasper to its north.
The Canadian Pacific Railway was an early means of access to Banff, and the Pacific Railway Group built the Banff Springs Hotel and the Lake Louise Castle Hotel in the park, which attracted a large number of visitors. the road to Banff was completed in the early 1900s, during World War I and the Great Depression. the park was opened to the public year-round beginning in 1960, and in 1990 the number of visitors reached 5 million. Millions of visitors travel via the Trans-Canada Highway. As Banff National Park was one of the most popular parks in the world, the ecosystem began to suffer and in the mid-1990s, Parks Canada launched a two-year research project that enacted a series of measures to try to control visitor numbers and protect the ecosystem.
Throughout its history, Banff National Park can be divided into phases of nature conservation and tourism development. 1885 saw the creation of the park as a result of a dispute over the discoverer of the hot springs and the right to develop them commercially. Canadian Prime Minister John Alexander Macdonald established the hot springs as a small reserve, which was later expanded to include Lake Louise and the Columbia Icefield to the north. Banff National Park is so effective in ecological protection and so popular with outdoor adventure enthusiasts that it also gave birth to an outdoor documentary film festival named after Banff, "Banff Mountain Festival", which has started to go to major cinemas in major cities in China for public screening in 2011 and is loved by domestic outdoor enthusiasts, encouraging more young people to get closer to nature, strengthen their beliefs and pursue their dreams most.
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