You don’t need a plane ticket to Arizona to stand at the edge of a jaw-dropping canyon. All across the country, states have their own dramatic gorges, gulfs, and river-carved chasms so impressive that locals started calling them their own “Grand Canyon” — of the East, of Texas, of the Pacific, even of the Prairie State. Some were carved by rivers over millions of years, one was accidentally created by 1800s farmers plowing too hard, and one is the genuine article, tucked inside Yellowstone National Park. Here are 10 of the best, counted down from the most spectacular.

Waimea Canyon State Park, Hawaii — “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”
Mark Twain is credited with giving Waimea Canyon its nickname after visiting Kauai in the 1860s, and once you see it, it’s easy to understand why. The canyon stretches about 10 miles long, a mile wide, and plunges as deep as 3,600 feet, carved by the Waimea River pouring off Mount Waiʻaleʻale, one of the wettest spots on Earth. Instead of the tan and rust of its Arizona namesake, Waimea explodes in streaks of red, orange, and jungle green, with waterfalls tumbling hundreds of feet down its walls and wild goats picking their way along the ridgelines. The drive up Waimea Canyon Drive climbs from sea level to 4,000 feet, ending near an overlook of the impossibly green Kalalau Valley.
Address: 8840 Waimea Canyon Dr, Waimea, HI 96796
Website: dlnr.hawaii.gov/dsp/parks/kauai/waimea-canyon-state-park

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Wyoming
This is the one entry on the list that doesn’t need a nickname — it’s officially named the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and it earns the title. Carved by the Yellowstone River through 20 miles of colorful rhyolite rock, the canyon reaches depths of around 1,000 feet and is anchored by the thunderous Lower Falls, which drop nearly twice the height of Niagara. The canyon’s yellow, orange, and pink walls (the source of the park’s very name) are best seen from Artist Point or Inspiration Point, where the river and falls line up for one of the most photographed views in the National Park System.
Address: Canyon Village, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
Website: https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/yell-grand-canyon-of-the-yellowstone.htm

Letchworth State Park, New York — “The Grand Canyon of the East”
Letchworth was voted USA Today’s best state park in the country, and its centerpiece is the reason why: a gorge where the Genesee River drops through three major waterfalls between cliffs rising nearly 600 feet. Over 66 miles of hiking trails trace the rim and canyon floor, and the park doubles as a designated Bird Conservation Area, drawing bald eagles and great blue herons. Seneca legend held that the gorge was so wondrous it made the sun stop and linger at midday — a claim that feels believable once you’re standing at one of the park’s cliffside overlooks.
Address: 1 Letchworth State Park, Castile, NY 14427
Website: parks.ny.gov/parks/letchworth

New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia — “The Grand Canyon of the East”
Letchworth has competition for the “Grand Canyon of the East” title, and it’s the New River Gorge — a 1,600-foot-deep canyon cut by one of the oldest rivers on the planet. The gorge is spanned by the New River Gorge Bridge, once the longest single-arch bridge in the world, standing 876 feet above the water. Once a year, on Bridge Day, the road closes so thousands of spectators can watch BASE jumpers parachute off the span into the gorge below — a spectacle you won’t find at any other canyon on this list.
Address: Canyon Rim Visitor Center, 162 Visitor Center Rd, Lansing, WV 25862
Website: nps.gov/neri

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas — “The Grand Canyon of Texas”
Palo Duro isn’t just Texas’s answer to the Grand Canyon — it’s the second-largest canyon in the entire United States, running 120 miles long and 800 feet deep. Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado passed through in 1542, and the canyon later served as a Native American refuge and the site of the decisive 1874 Red River War battle. Today, visitors descend the canyon’s caprock formations on more than 30 miles of trails, and every summer the outdoor amphitheater hosts the TEXAS Outdoor Musical against a backdrop of glowing red cliffs.
Address: 11450 Park Road 5, Canyon, TX 79015
Website: tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/palo-duro-canyon

Colton Point State Park, Pennsylvania — “The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”
Pine Creek Gorge earned its “Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania” nickname the honest way — it’s nearly 1,000 feet deep and 47 miles long, carved by Pine Creek through the Allegheny Plateau. Colton Point State Park sits on the gorge’s rustic west rim, built up during the Civilian Conservation Corps era of the 1930s, with rugged overlooks staring straight across at its sister park, Leonard Harrison, on the opposite side. It’s a quieter, more forested version of canyon country, without a single cactus in sight.
Address: 927 Colton Road, Wellsboro, PA 16901
Website: pa.gov/ColtonPointStatePark

Providence Canyon State Park, Georgia — “Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon”
Providence Canyon has one of the more unusual origin stories on this list: it wasn’t carved by an ancient river, but by 1800s farmers whose poor plowing practices opened gullies that deepened into 16 separate canyons, some 150 feet deep. What started as an agricultural mistake is now one of Georgia’s Seven Natural Wonders, with walls striped in white, pink, purple, red, and orange from mineral-stained soil. The park is also home to the rare plumleaf azalea and, thanks to minimal light pollution, some of the best stargazing in the Southeast.
Address: 8930 Canyon Rd, Lumpkin, GA 31815
Website: gastateparks.org/ProvidenceCanyon

Cottonwood Canyon State Park, Oregon
Oregon’s second-largest state park sits where the John Day River has spent millions of years cutting through ancient basalt lava flows, exposing cliffs that tower nearly 2,000 feet above sea level. Unlike the more famous entries on this list, Cottonwood Canyon stays wonderfully uncrowded, with the Lost Corral and Pinnacles trails running along opposite riverbanks through rocky grassland where elk, bighorn sheep, and mule deer roam.
Address: Cottonwood Canyon State Park, Wasco, OR 97065
Website: oregonstateparks.org

Grand Gulf State Park, Missouri — “America’s Little Grand Canyon”
Grand Gulf isn’t a canyon in the traditional sense — it’s the remains of one of the largest collapsed cave systems in the Ozarks, stretching more than a mile between walls 130 feet high. The cave’s surviving roof forms one of the biggest natural bridges in Missouri, spanning 250 feet with a 75-foot-high opening, and after heavy rain the gulf can fill with water more than 100 feet deep before slowly draining out over weeks. Designated a National Natural Landmark in 1971, it’s one of the odder, more geologically fascinating entries on this list.
Address: State Highway W, Thayer, MO 65791
Website: mostateparks.com/park/grand-gulf-state-park

Little Grand Canyon, Shawnee National Forest, Illinois
Proof that even famously flat Illinois has a canyon up its sleeve: a small creek with a tiny watershed carved this 365-foot-deep box canyon into the bluffs above the Big Muddy River. A 3.6-mile loop trail winds from upland hardwood forest down into a cooler, damper canyon floor, home to Arctic relic plants left behind by glaciers thousands of years ago — a genuine geological time capsule that earned it National Natural Landmark status in 1980.
Address: Little Grand Canyon Rd, Pomona, IL 62975
Website: fs.usda.gov/shawnee

From a Hawaiian gorge nicknamed by Mark Twain to an Illinois box canyon carved by a creek you could step across, America’s “Grand Canyons” prove that you don’t have to travel to Arizona to feel small standing at the edge of something enormous. Whether it’s the real Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone or a scrappy little imitator in the Ozarks, each of these ten places earned its nickname the hard way — through millions of years of erosion, a few accidental farming mistakes, and, in at least one case, a very impressed 19th-century novelist.