This relatively new National Park officially opened on 1 September 2003. In 1994, the UK government set up a partnership to prepare and implement a Management Strategy for the Cairngorms that would guarantee a sustainable future for the area and its communities. The Cairngorms National Park Authority is an Executive NDPB which functions principally as an enabling and facilitating body rather than a regulatory body.

The Cairngorms National Park is Scotland's second national park, and the UK's largest at 3,800 square kilometres (1,400 square miles) covering an area from Grantown on Spey to the heads of the Angus Glens, and from Ballater to Dalwhinnie and Drumochter including much of the Laggan area in the south west and a large area of the Glen Livet estate and the Strathdon/Glen Buchat area. The Park area is home to a quarter of Scotland's native woodland with the biggest continuous stretches of near-natural vegetation in Britain. It is a refuge for a host of rare plants and creatures, including 25% of the UK's threatened species.

The National Park is also home to several well known Scottish landmarks, including Balavil House in Badenoch which was the home of James MacPherson, whose reworking of the Ossian cycle inspired the Romantic movement across Europe. Also within the park is Balmoral Castle on Deeside, the favourite retreat of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and still the summer and Christmas refuge of the British Royal Family.