Nature Observatory

← All cameras

Nature

US and Korean National Parks: 25 Live Cameras

Japan's Ministry of the Environment puts cameras in its national parks, and so do the agencies that look after parks elsewhere: 11 from the U.S. National Park Service and 14 from the Korea National Park Service. They are ordered by when daylight reaches them, read from Japan.

What you can see

All 25 are cameras the park agency installed itself. They exist to show what the park looks like today rather than to advertise it, which puts them close in spirit to the Japanese cameras elsewhere on this site.

The two countries deliver them differently. The 11 American cameras are still images, and no refresh interval is published — treat each one as a frame from shortly before you opened it. The 14 Korean cameras are 24-hour live video. The park service marks works that may be reused freely, and the live pages carry no such mark, so this site does not restage the video and only points you to the official page. That is why the Korean cards have no sample image.

The American side covers an extraordinary range of ground: a geyser that erupts on a near-schedule, a canyon cut through two billion years of rock, glacier-carved peaks, a park where rainforest meets coastline, a desert of strange trees, a caldera filled with water, and a stratovolcano under permanent ice. Opened one after another they hardly look like the same country.

On the Korean side what stands out is how close the mountains are to the cities. Bukhansan begins immediately north of central Seoul, and the Sapaesan view has housing running right up to the slope. Ulsanbawi on Seoraksan and the pinnacles of Juwangsan are weathered granite; Sobaeksan, Deogyusan and Mudeungsan are ridgelines that ice over in winter; Taeanhaean and Byeonsanbando sit on the wide-tidal Yellow Sea; Dadohaehaesang and Hallyeohaesang look out over island-scattered water.

Cameras you can watch now: 25

15 video, 10 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Korea keeps the same clock as Japan, so morning there is morning here and no conversion is needed. Taeanhaean and Byeonsanbando face the Yellow Sea, which means the sun goes down over the water.

America is awake while Japan sleeps. The clocks run 13–14 hours behind Japan on the east coast, 15–16 in the mountain states, 16–17 on the Pacific coast and 17–18 in Alaska (an hour either way depending on daylight saving; Arizona does not observe it). Roughly: 10pm in Japan is morning at Acadia, midnight is morning at Rocky Mountain and Glacier, 1am is morning at Yosemite, and 5am is midday at Denali. The order of this page is that same sequence.

By season, Denali and Rocky Mountain lose the daylight in winter and stay dim even at noon. Korean ridgelines take their rime ice in winter, and Juwangsan turns colour from the valley floor upward. The Grand Canyon walls redden around sunrise and sunset — which from Japan means late afternoon and late morning respectively.

None of the 25 show much once it is dark. The American cameras return a black still; the Korean ones keep streaming a dark picture.

If it isn't showing

The Korean cards are blank because of permissions, not failure. The park service's copyright notice says freely reusable works carry a mark saying so, and the live pages carry none. What isn't clear doesn't get copied, so this site links instead. Tap the card and the video plays on the park service's own page.

The American cameras are U.S. Government works and can be sampled, but they are in daylight while Japan is asleep. Old Faithful's card is still empty for that reason alone; it will be filled in.

Japan's own national-park cameras are on Akan-Mashu and Oze, and the American volcano cameras are on the volcanoes of Hawaii Island.

Where to find US and Korean National Parks

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.

To find other cameras, go to the camera list. You can narrow all 173 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.
Ad
Ad slot (not configured)