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While Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan’s six-episode PBS documentary series framed national parks as “America’s Best Idea”, that idea has not been limited to the borders of the United States. The world’s first national parks service was established in Canada; the world’s largest national park is in Greenland; the Mongolian government claims Bogd Khan Uul National Park as the oldest national park in the world, first designated for protection in 1783. The US model for national parks has obviously been influential in parks history, but to what extent was the national parks idea an international movement?

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