Channel Islands National Park includes five islands off Southern California—Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and Santa Rosa—and protects 249,561 acres, about half underwater, alongside nearby marine sanctuary waters. The islands preserve an unusually deep record of human occupation, with archaeological evidence on the northern islands dating back 8,000 to 13,000 years, including some of North America’s oldest coastal sites. Chumash communities lived on the northern islands when Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo arrived in 1542. The park, established in 1980 after earlier protections, is also renowned for rich wildlife, many endemic species, and geologic features shaped by an ancient island system and later environmental events such as the 1969 oil blowout.