New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
The New River Valley from the Grandview portion of the national park
Map of the United States Show map of West Virginia New River Gorge National Park and Preserve (the United States) Show map of the United States
Location	Fayette, and Summers counties, West Virginia, United States
Nearest city	Fayetteville, West Virginia
Coordinates	37°57′39″N 81°4′54″W / 37.96083°N 81.08167°W / 37.96083; -81.08167
Area	72,808 acres (294.64 km2)[1]
Established	November 10, 1978, as a national river December 27, 2020, as a national park
Visitors	1,593,523 (in 2022)[2]
Governing body	National Park Service
Website	New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is a unit of the United States National Park Service (NPS) designed to protect and maintain the New River Gorge in southern West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. Established in 1978 as a national river and redesignated in 2020, the park and preserve stretches for 53 miles (85 km) from just downstream of Hinton to Hawks Nest State Park near Ansted.^[1]

The park is rich in cultural and natural history and offers an abundance of scenic and recreational opportunities. New River Gorge has some of the country's best whitewater rafting, mainly from the Cunard put-in to the Fayette Station take-out,^[3] and is also one of the most popular climbing areas on the East Coast. The New River itself originates in North Carolina, flowing north through Virginia into the West Virginia mountains to the Kanawha River which continues to the Ohio River.