Created on the basis of a former national hunting reserve, itself the result of a hunting reserve belonging to the King of Italy that came under French sovereignty in 1947, the Mercantour National Park is a narrow strip of land crossed by a series of rivers that flow mainly from north to south: Roya, Bevera, Vésubie, Tinée, Cians, Var, Lance, Verdon, Bachelard and Ubayette. A high mountain park located less than 30 km from the Mediterranean, it is the meeting point of three biogeographical zones: Alpine, Ligurian and Provençal, each characterised by its own natural environments and original species.

The Mercantour National Park is twinned with the Parco Naturale Alpi Marittime, which occupies the northern slopes of the Argentera-Mercantour massif, and with which it forms a protected area of almost 100,000 hectares considered to be the most important centre of endemism in the Alpine chain.