Scenic Yosemite National Park

A cartographic tribute to the birthplace of the national park idea

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I visited the Yosemite Valley in July 2025, and decided to design a map to dipict the beautiful view of this scenic Yosemite National Park, the birthplace of the national park idea.

This Scenic Yosemite National Park map offers an oblique bird’s-eye view of California’s Sierra Nevada, centered on the breathtaking Yosemite Valley. Rendered with precision and artistic clarity, it highlights the park’s most iconic landmarks—including Half Dome, El Capitan, Tuolumne Meadows, Tioga Pass, and the surrounding high country.

Using a 3D perspective, naturalistic color-shaded relief, and elevation labeling, the map emphasizes both geographic accuracy and visual storytelling. Terrain layers derived from digital elevation models are combined with carefully positioned labels to guide the viewer’s eye across major peaks, valleys, rivers, and forested regions.

The map’s design style is inspired by National Park Service (NPS) cartography but is not an official NPS publication. Note that this map is only a schematic depiction of Yosemite's landscape for illustrative purposes, and is not intended for navigation or precise location finding. Official and up-to-date information is available from the NPS website.

This map is displayed in the map gallery (map poster) of North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) 2025 annual meeting at Louisiville, KY (Oct 15-17). Check out my other entries in the map gallery!