Great Smoky Mountains National Park spans the crest of the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina and ranks among the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. Chartered in 1934 and dedicated in 1940, it became the first U.S. national park funded in part by federal money, later gaining UNESCO World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve status. The park is famed for high peaks, deep valleys, dense forests, thousands of miles of streams, waterfalls, and exceptional biodiversity sustained by a wet mountain climate. It also preserves traces of earlier mountain communities and stands beside the homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.