The Dinosaur Provincial Park is a World Heritage Site (since 1979) located about 2 hours drive east of Calgary, Alberta, Canada or 48 kilometres northeast of the community of Brooks.

The park is situated in the province's badlands area, a place with unusual rock formations that encompases 73.29 square kilometres (18,110 acres). It is well known for being one of the greatest dinosaur fossil beds in the world. There have been 35 different species of dinosaur discovered here from every known family of the Cretaceous period. Besides the amazing variety of finds also notable is the volume with more than 300 specimens removed and exhibited in museums across the globe.

History

Established in 1955 as part of Alberta's 50th Jubilee Year with the goal of protecting the fossil bone beds, the park also boasts a very complex ecoysystem including cottonwoods. It's ecosystem is surrounded by prairies but is unique unto itself. The first warden was Roy Fowler, a farmer and amateur fossil hunter.

Until 1985 discoveries made in the park had to be shipped to museums throughout the world for scientific analysis and display. This changed with the opening of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology 100 kilometres upstream in Drumheller; now the fossils could be studied and displayed in Alberta.