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Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park is a United States national park that consists of 379 mi² ( 987 km²To help compare different orders of magnitude and geographical regions, we list here areas between 100 km² and 1000 km². See also areas of other orders of magnitude. Areas less than 100 km² 100 km² is equal to: a square with sides 10 km long 10,000 hectar) of sharply erodedErosion is the displacement of solids ( soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, or movement in response to gravity. Although the processes may be simultaneous, erosion is to be distinguished from weathering, which is the decompos butteIn the United States and Canada, a butte related to a mesa, is an isolated hill with steep sides and a small flat top. Usually, buttes are numerous in the midwestern US and around the islands of Hawaii, especially around Honolulu. Buttes are, however, nots, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grassIn popular language grass means a short, green, ground covering or lawn usually, but not necessarily comprised of a "true grass" or grasses, called turf. See also pasture, grass (material . In botany, grass refers to plants of the family Poaceae. These ar prairieA prairie is an area of land of low topographic relief that principally supports grasses and herbs, with few trees, and is generally of a mesic (moderate or temperate) climate. Most of the Great Plains, most of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Io in the United States. The Badlands Wilderness Area protects 64,000 acres (259 km²) of the park as as a designated wilderness areaBroadly, a wilderness area is a region where the land is left in a state where human modifications are minimal; that is, as a wilderness. It might also be called a wild or natural area. Especially in some wealthier, industrialized nations, it has a more s and is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammalSubclass Monotremata Monotremata Subclass Marsupialia Didelphimorphia Paucituberculata Microbiotheria Dasyuromorphia Peramelemorphia Notoryctemorphia Diprotodontia Subclass Placentalia Xenarthra Dermoptera Desmostylia Scandentia Primates Rodentia Lagomorp in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux tribe and includes sites of 1890s Ghost Dances. Established as Badlands National Monument on January 25, 1939, the area was redesignated as a national park in 1978. Over 11,000 years of human history in the park pales in comparison to the ages-old paleontological resources also found there.

Badlands National Park contains the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. Scientists can study the evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig in the Badlands formations.