White Sands National Park encompasses approximately 146,000 acres in the Tularosa Basin of Otero County, New Mexico.

The park was originally designated as a National Monument in 1933, under the administration of Herbert Hoover, and was upgraded to National Park status in December 2019.

Its primary claim to public attention has historically been the spectacular gypsum dune field — the largest in the world — that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to sled down the white dunes and experience one of the most visually striking landscapes in the American Southwest.

The paleontological and geological dimensions of the park have been studied for decades.

The same geological processes that formed the dunes — the dissolution of gypsum from surrounding mountains, its transport in lake water, its deposition on the lakebed, and the subsequent wind transport of the dried gypsum across the basin — also preserved the fossil record that has been the focus of increasing scientific attention.

Bear tracks, mammoth tracks, ground sloth tracks, and other Pleistocene megafauna traces were known from the park long before the human footprints became a focus of intensive study.