Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Executive summary by darmansjah

Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States. The park was created in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, to protect some of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in the world, or as he said, "preserve the works of man". As a result, it is the first, and still only, cultural National Park set aside by the National Park System. It occupies 81.4 square miles (211 km2) near the Four Corners and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the Ancestral Puebloan people, sometimes called the Anasazi. There are over four thousand archaeological sites and over six hundred cliff dwellings of the Pueblo people at the site.

The Anasazi inhabited Mesa Verde between 600 to 1300, though there is evidence they left before the start of the fifteenth century. They were mainly subsistence farmers, growing crops on nearby mesas. Their primary crop was corn, the major part of their diet. Men were also hunters, which further increased their food supply. The women of the Anasazi are famous for their elegant basket weaving. Anasazi pottery is as famous as their baskets; their artifacts are highly prized. The Anasazi kept no written records.

By the year 750, the people were building mesa-top villages made of adobe. In the late 1190s, they began to build the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is famous.

Mesa Verde is best known for cliff dwellings, which are structures built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs — including Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The Spanish term Mesa Verde translates into English as "green table". It is considered to contain some of the most notable and best preserved archaeological sites

Mesa Verde's park entrance is on U.S. Route 160, about 9 miles (14 km) east of the community of Cortez and about 7 miles (11 km) west of Mancos, Colorado.

The park protects over 4,000 archaeological sites, including 600 separate cliff dwellings Of the park's 600 separate cliff dwellings, 230 of them have been assessed for damage, and may be repaired in the coming years.

The Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center is located just off of Highway 160 and is before the park entrance booths. The Visitor and Research Center opened in December 2012. Chapin Mesa (the most popular area) is 20 miles (32 km) beyond the visitor center.

Park facilities and access:

The park's Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum is open all year.

Three of the cliff dwellings on Chapin Mesa are open to the public.

Spruce Tree House is open all year, weather permitting.

Balcony House, Long House and Cliff Palace require tour tickets for ranger-guided tours. Many other dwellings are visible from the road but not open to tourists.

The park offers hiking trails, a campground, and, during peak season, facilities for food, fuel, and lodging; these are unavailable in the winter.

Mesa Verde National Park is an area of federal exclusive jurisdiction. Because of this all law enforcement, emergency medical service, and wildland/structural fire duties are conducted by federal National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers.

The Mesa Verde National Park Post Office has the ZIP Code 81330