Why was the United States the first country to designate a national park, back in 1872?

Yellowstone in 1872 became the first national park in the world. Why didn’t the more “enlightened” countries of canada or sweden or germany or france or cuba or Venezuela come up with one first?

it’s no longer PC to declare the US as having the first or biggest of anything any longer. We’ll just conveniently state that Yellowstone was the first national park in the US. We don’t want to get our european friends and those who love them upset.