Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, USA

© Tony Barber/Getty Image

Picture perfect. Nature Photography Day

Welcome to the misty peaks and valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the south-east USA, established on this day in 1934. The perfect place to celebrate Nature Photography Day, it is known for its persistent haze. This region is the ancestral home of the Cherokee people whose name for it translates to ‘the place of the blue smoke’. The smoke is actually a fog created in part by native vegetation. It owes its blueish appearance to humidity and stagnant air.

Almost all of the park, which sits between Tennessee and North Carolina, is covered in forest, much of it undisturbed ‘old growth’ woodland with trees that are hundreds of years old. The thick forests, range of elevations and plenty of rainfall support a wide variety of wildlife. There are about two black bears for every square mile of the park while bats, foxes, skunks, otters, bobcats and 200 species of birds also call this place home. The park is most notable for its salamanders. In fact, it’s known as the Salamander Capital of the World, with 30 species living here.

But the real stars of the park are the mountains. For panoramic vistas, this vantage point at 6,643ft (2,025m) - Clingman’s Dome on the west side of the park - is hard to beat. The views might explain what makes Great Smoky Mountains the USA’s most popular national park, with more than 14m visitors a year – more than the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite combined.