Recreation area

These lands are also being evaluated to determine whether the area should be "upgraded" to full protected area status, or returned to integrated resource management lands.

[1] In the United States, National Recreation Areas are administered by several different agencies.

They typically do not meet the strict guidelines to become national parks.

[2] In U.S. state park systems, recreation areas may also fail to meet some criteria to be designated state parks, such as having multiple non-contiguous properties.

For instance, in Michigan, the largest state recreation area, Waterloo Recreation Area is 20,500-acre (83 km2) while the smallest state park is the 31-acre (0.13 km2) Tri-Centennial State Park and Harbor.