Manhattan Project National Historical Park

Manhattan Project National Historical Park is a U.S. National Park Service unit that preserves and interprets sites central to the World War II Manhattan Project. The park comprises historic facilities across three states that together tell the story of the project’s research, production and social impacts.

Interpretive exhibits, preserved buildings and outdoor industrial structures document the development of nuclear weapons, wartime production methods and the communities created around those efforts. Each unit offers different focuses: laboratory and scientific history at Los Alamos, production and industrial infrastructure at Hanford, and research, production and community history at Oak Ridge.

Guided tours, museum displays and educational programs explain technical achievements, wartime urgency and the ethical and social questions raised by the project. Visitor access and program details vary by unit and specific historic properties.

The park was established in the 2010s to recognize and interpret the Manhattan Project’s national significance; it brings together formerly separate historic sites that were pivotal to the 1940s effort to develop the first atomic weapons.

The park is a multi-state unit with sites at Los Alamos (New Mexico), Hanford (Washington) and Oak Ridge (Tennessee); the Tennessee (Oak Ridge) unit is located in and around the city of Oak Ridge in eastern Tennessee.

• Tri-site park: A tri-site national historical park covering key Manhattan Project locations in Oak Ridge (Tennessee), Los Alamos (New Mexico) and Hanford (Washington), established to interpret the scientific and social history of the project.

What to See #

• Oak Ridge Unit: Oak Ridge Unit (Tennessee) - includes historic Manhattan Project sites such as the X-10 Graphite Reactor and Y-12 facilities associated with wartime production and research.
• Los Alamos Unit: Los Alamos Unit (New Mexico) - encompasses laboratory buildings and historic sites where laboratory research and design of the first nuclear weapons took place.
• Hanford Unit: Hanford Unit (Washington) - contains production reactors, processing plants and infrastructure linked to plutonium production during World War II.