Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a scenic area in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. The park covers an area of about 813 square miles (2,106 km2). About 40 per cent of the land is virgin forest, the largest unspoiled hardwood and red-spruce forest in the United States. Botanists have found about 150 species of trees in the park. There are more than 1,200 different kinds of flowering plants, and abundant animal life. The clear, spring-fed mountain streams are well stocked with trout. The park was authorized in 1926 and officially established in 1934. Headquarters are at Gatlinburg, Tennessee.