Through the Conservancy's partnership with DarkSky International, Badlands National Park is now the first and only designated International DarkSky Park in South Dakota.

With 244,000 acres and almost no light pollution, Badlands National Park is one of the best places in the United States to experience the night sky. On any given night, visitors can see more than 7,500 stars—along with galaxies, planets, moons, and star clusters—stretching across an unforgettable horizon.

An International DarkSky Park designation:

• Upgrades park lighting to DarkSky-approved fixtures that reduce glare and blue light

• Improves visitor experiences while protecting wildlife and ecosystems

• Aligns the park with a global movement to reduce light pollution

Each summer, the Badlands come alive after dark with the annual Astronomy Festival, a three-day celebration of science, wonder, and community under the stars.

Visitors of all ages and experience levels can:

• Attend public star parties under pristine night skies

• Hear from guest astronomers and space science experts

• Explore hands-on, kid-friendly activities during the day

• Visit solar observation stations and interactive exhibits

• Join evening presentations at the Cedar Pass Amphitheater

AstroFest 2026 will take place July 17–19. For more information, visit the Badlands Astronomy Festival's website.

Through an extraordinary public-private partnership, funding has been fully secured for a new $25 million Visitor Center at Badlands National Park.

The new center will welcome more than one million visitors each year and shape meaningful learning experiences around the park's cultural and natural resources, dark sky viewing, paleontological uniqueness, and tribal cooperation.

Construction is slated to begin in fall 2026. Once complete, the current center will be repurposed into much-needed National Park Service office space through additional Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) Legacy Restoration Funds.

In 2019, the BNPC celebrated a newly fenced bison range east of Pinnacles Overlook. The removal of a 680-acre private inholding opened 22,000 acres for bison to graze and migrate freely into the eastern portion of the park, giving the second-largest bison herd in the National Park Service much-needed room to grow.

The Badlands' oldest fossils date back 75 million years. As erosion chisels away layers of sediment, groundbreaking new specimens often surface naturally. This abundance of geological evidence—and rich histories yet to be discovered—makes supporting paleontology an ongoing priority for the BNPC.