Contributing editor Rebecca Latson starts out the New Year with another national parks quiz and trivia piece.See how much park knowledge you possess before checking the answers at the bottom of the article.

Though the National Park Service makes up only one-tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget, it takes up a much larger share of the public imagination. The parks are also prominent in media coverage on the federal government. That’s especially true during one of our regular government shutdowns, when the media tells stories of closed parks, disappointed visitors, vandals, and piles of trash.

A proposal by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to put 31 oil and gas leases near Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico to bid this September has been put off, according to watchdog groups.