INTERNATIONAL DARK SKY PARKS

~ a park or other public land possessing exceptional starry skies and natural nocturnal habitat where light pollution is mitigated and natural darkness is valuable as an important educational, cultural, scenic, and natural resources.

An International Dark Sky Park is a location of exceptional nighttime beauty, dark skies education, and preservation of the nighttime environment. Each park shown below has gone above and beyond the requirements as stated in our International Dark Sky Park Guidelines.

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Three tiers designate the quality of night skies the park is recognized for. Gold represents the highest award representing the darkest skies, followed by the Silver and Bronze designations. Requirements for each of the designations are shown in the table below.

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Artificial Light and Skyglow	Typical observer is not distracted by glary light sources. Light domes are only dim and restricted to sky close to horizon.	Point light sources and glary lights do not dominate nighttime scene. Light domes present around horizon bud do not stretch to zenith.	Areas with greater artificial light and skyglow than Silver, but where aspects of the natural sky are still visible.
Visual Limiting Magnitude	Equal or greater than 6.8 under clear skies and good seeing conditions	6.0 to 6.7 under clear skies and good conditions	5.0-5.9 under clear skies and good seeing conditions
Bortle Sky Class	1-3	3-5	5-6
Observable Sky Phenomena	The full array of visible sky phenomena can be viewed—e.g. aurora, airglow, Milky Way, zodiacal light, and faint meteors	Brighter sky phenomena can be regularly viewed, with fainter ones sometimes visible. Milky Way is visible in summer and winter.	Many sky phenomena cannot be seen. Milky Way is faintly seen when pointed out, as is Andromeda Galaxy.
Unihedron Sky Quality Meter	21.75 or above	21.00 or above	20.00 or above

The International Dark-Sky Association continues to accept applications from parks wishing to join in the ranks of the highest prestige for nighttime visages.

If you are interested in applying or learning more about the process please fill out this form.

Download the Guidelines

Download the IDA-RASC-Guidelines for Outdoor Lighting

Release of Updates to IDSPlaces Guidelines

Updated guidelines for communities, parks, and reserves have been released. Please refer to these new guidelines when applying for designation.

If you are interested in developing or are currently developing an application for a location we encourage you to consider these new guidelines. Locations that are currently developing applications, and have made substantial progress (as approved by the IDA program manager) will have until 25 November 2013 to complete and submit their applications under the previous guidelines. The previous guidelines have been removed from the website but are available upon request. To submit under the previous guidelines you must have contact with the program manager and receive approval.

As part of the new guidelines bi-monthly submission deadlines will be set. These dates will be updated yearly. The deadlines represent the date that the applications (already reviewed and approved by the IDA program manager) will be sent to the committee. This year's dates are listed below:

Submission Deadline Dates:

7/22/13

9/23/13

11/25/13

Download the new guidelines:

Dark Sky Park

For Certified IDSPlaces

Download the Annual Report for Parks and Reserves

Certified International Dark Sky Parks

Name	Location	Year Established	Tier
Natural Bridges National Monument	Utah, USA	2006	Gold
Cherry Springs State Park	Pennsylvania, USA	2008	Gold
Galloway Forest Park	Scotland, UK	2009	Gold
Zselic National Landscape Protection Area	Hungary	2009	Silver
Goldendale Observatory Park	Washington, USA	2010	Silver
Clayton Lake State Park	New Mexico, USA	2010	Gold
Hortobagy National Park	Hungary	2011	Silver
Observatory Park	Ohio, USA	2011	Silver
The Headlands	Michigan, USA	2011	Silver
Big Bend National Park	Texas, USA	2012	Gold
Death Valley National Park	California, USA	2013	Gold