3 . The United States has over 50 famous, well-traveled national parks. Among them are Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Acadia. The country also has several roads called National Parkways. These long, winding paths let Visitors experience nature, history and culture from a car. Like the parks, the roads are managed by the National Park Service.

The parkways cut through some of the most scenic parts of the country. One of the longest and most popular is the Blue Ridge Parkway.

National parkways are made up of scenic roads and surrounding land. They were designed to give people driving cars a chance to see beautiful parts of the country. They have also been important for improving local economies.

The idea for National Parkways began in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a difficult economic time in the United States. Families and communities suffered. Many people were without work.

To create more jobs and improve the economy, the U.S. government built roads that passed through beautiful parts of the country that had suffered during the Depression.

One of these roads was the Blue Ridge Parkway. The early goal for the parkway was to build a road through the Appalachian Mountains that connected Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

In the beginning, building the parkway created some problems for local communities. People who had been living in the area were forced to move. Also, people were not permitted to drive vehicles on the parkway while carrying items for sale. But, in the end, the Blue Ridge Parkway brought jobs and money to the communities. And today, it is an important part of the local economy. In the last year, the Blue Ridge Parkway earned over a billion dollars from tourism. That is more money than any other place managed by the National Park Service.

4 . Chewbaca climbed into the pilot seat of the Milemium Falcon as fireworks exploded above Disneyland in Anahein, California, Wednesday. Chewbacca is an imaginary creature born in the first of the Star Wars series of movies. He was in Disneyland for a ceremony to open the new Star Wars area at the theme park.

“Chewie, let’s fire up the Falcon,” said Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker. He also attended the event to open the more than five-and-one-half hectare area called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It opened to the public Friday.

The furry Chewbacca had trouble starting the huge spaceship, which led actor Harison Ford to Surprise the crowd and offer an assist. Ford played the Siar Wars character Han Solo. He hit the side of the ship and said “Peter, this one’s for you,” in honor of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in five films and died in April.

Ford stood on stage with Hamil, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, Star Wars creator George Lucas, and Bily Dee Williams, who performed the part of Lando Calrissian in Star Wars.

Lucas created the Star Wars movie series in 1977 and sold it to Disney in 2012. He gave high praise to Galaxy’s Edge, which is set in Black Spire Outpost, a settlement on a planet called Batuu that appeared in “Star Wars” books but never in the film.

The Star Wars area offers visitors the chance to step into the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit and control a simulated flight. Guests can also drink blue milk, eat space meat cooked by a pod-racing engine and have a drink at an outer-space restaurant.

Expectations run high from generations of fans. Many of the movie series lovers have waited 40 years since the first film to visit a real-world version of the galaxy far, far away.

Disney also aims to appeal to a broad group of Star Wars lover s as well as people without any attachment to the futuristic series.

9 . A national park is created for the purpose of conservation. Yellowstone National Park in the US was the first national park in the world. Here are some other national parks in the world.

Northeast Greenland National Park, Denmark

The national park is the largest one in the world. It covers an area of 927，000 km²，It is also the most northern national park in the world.

Around 5,000 to 15,000 musk oxen (麝香牛) as well as polar bears live in the park. Some of the birds also live there.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Australia

The park is the second largest national park in the world. It protects a large part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef from being damaged in any way.

All commercial ships must stay on specific shipping routes that avoid the most sensitive areas of the park. The Great Barrier Reef has the world's largest number of corals and other sea life.

Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, Mozambique

This national park covers an area of 99,800 km².It joins some of the famous wildlife areas in southern Africa into a huge conservation area.

In 2006, the Giriyondo tourist access between the Limpopo and Kruger national parks was opened. There were 5,000 animals moving from Kruger to Limpopo National Park, including over 1,000 elephants.

Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada

The park was created in 1922 to protect the wood bison (森林野牛) whose population had dropped from 40 million in 1830 to less than 1.000 by 1900.

The park consists of 44,807 square kilometers of northern plains. It is also the world's only natural living place of the cranes (鹤).