Badlands National Park, South Dakota, view from Badlands Loop Road.

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The Badlands National Park of South Dakota covers some 242, 756 acres, over 64,000 acres of which is designated wilderness area. It is a varies area of eroded buttes, spires and pinnacles with a variety of coloured strata adding to the beauty. it also has the largest area of undisturbed grass prairie in the USA. The area has been settled by native Americans for 11,000 years, latterly by the Lakota. In the mid 1800s the area became popular with fossil hunters. Towards the end of the 19th century settlers moved in by the homesteads granted to them proved too small in this hostile environment. The homesteads were enlarged but the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s and a wave of grasshoppers proved too much for the settlers.

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Size: 4287px × 2848px
Location: Badlands Loop Road, Badlands National Park, South Dakota, USA.
Photo credit: © Brian Hartshorn / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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