Death Valley

Protected as a national monument since 1933 and raised to a national park in 1994 under the California Desert Protection Act, Death Valley holds the record for the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth: 56.7 °C at Furnace Creek on 10 July 1913. Badwater Basin, within the park, is also the lowest point in North America, at 86 metres below sea level. Its name comes from a party of gold prospectors who in 1849 were trapped in the valley for weeks trying to cross it on their way to California; by legend only one of them died, but on getting out he turned back towards the valley and said 'goodbye, Death Valley'.