MCP Server for National Park Services Data

★ 3

from amysatterlee

Retrieve data from the National Park Service (NPS) API.

🔥🔥🔥✓ VerifiedAccount requiredNeeds API keys

⌁ labsco summary — our analysis, not the vendor's

What it is — an MCP server that retrieves U.S. National Park Service data, letting an assistant answer questions about national parks.

What you get —

List parks in a state — park-list with a two-letter code, "What National Parks are in the state of CA?"
Fetch park details — park-details by park code, "Give me details about Yellowstone National Park"
Built-in prompts (parks-by-state, details-for-park) for natural queries

Requirements — from env + README: Node.js (v18+), Claude Desktop, and a free NPS API key (API_KEY) from nps.gov's developer portal.

Cost snapshot — the server is free and open source (no license stated in metadata); the NPS API key is free to obtain, so there's no service cost.

Setup effort — self-host: clone, npm install, npm run build, add the key to .env, and register node build/index.js in Claude Desktop.

Our take — A friendly, low-stakes example server that's genuinely useful for trip planning. Caveat: it exposes only two lookups (parks by state, park details), so it's narrow — and you do need to register for the free NPS API key first.

Source: the project README — summarized 2026-07-08.

⌁ readme from github — mirrored (latest on GitHub ↗)

MCP Server for National Park Services Data

This MCP Server provides an interface to retrieve National Park Services (NPS) data. It allows users to:

Retrieve a list of national parks in a given U.S. state.
Fetch detailed information about a specific national park.

It uses the National Park Service API to obtain the data.

API Endpoints

Fetch List of National Parks by State

Tool Name: park-list

Parameters:

stateCode (string) – Two-letter U.S. state code

Response Example:

[
  {
    "fullName": "Yellowstone National Park",
    "description": "First national park in the U.S.",
    "parkCode": "yell"
  }
]

Fetch Details of a National Park

Tool Name: park-details

Parameters:

parkCode (string) – National Park lookup code

Response Example:

[
  {
    "fullName": "Yellowstone National Park",
    "description": "First national park in the U.S.",
    "states": "WY, MT, ID"
  }
]

Prompts

Retrieve Parks in a State

Prompt Name: parks-by-state

Parameters:

stateCode (string)

Example:

What National Parks are in the state of CA?

Get Park Details

Prompt Name: details-for-park

Parameters:

park (string)

Example:

Give me details about Yellowstone National Park.

Copy & paste — that's it

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "nps": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "/<Path to Server>/build/index.js"
            ],
            "env": {
                "API_KEY": "Your NPS API Key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Before it works, you'll need: API_KEY

Requirements

Node.js (v18+ recommended)
npm or yarn
A valid NPS API key (available at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/developer/get-started.htm)
Claude Desktop installed (for running MCP servers)

Setup

Clone this repository:

git clone <repository-url>
cd <repository-folder>

Install dependencies:
```
npm install
```
Create a .env file in the root directory and add your NPS API key:
```
API_KEY=your_nps_api_key_here
```

Running the Server

To start the MCP server:

npm run build
node ./build/server.js

Using Claude Desktop:

Add this MCP Server to the claude_desktop_config.json

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "nps": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "/<Path to Server>/build/index.js"
            ],
            "env": {
                "API_KEY": "Your NPS API Key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Start or Restart Claude Desktop
Ensure your MCP server is recognized and running by clicking on the tools icon at the bottom of Claude's chat window.
Use Claude's interface to query National Park Services data.