Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 carved into the granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone

Keystone, South Dakota

Keystone is a town in the Black Hills region of Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 337 at the 2010 census. It had its origins in 1883 as a mining town, and has since transformed itself into a resort town, serving the needs of the millions of visitors to Mount...

, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Sculpted by Gutzon Borglum

Gutzon Borglum

Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum was an American artist and sculptor famous for creating the monumental presidents' heads at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, the famous carving on Stone Mountain near Atlanta, as well as other public works of art.- Background :The son of Mormon Danish immigrants, Gutzon...

, an American of Danish ancestry, and his son, Lincoln Borglum

Lincoln Borglum

James Lincoln de la Mothe Borglum was an American sculptor, photographer, author and engineer; he was best known for overseeing the completion of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial after the death in 1941 of the project's leader, his father Gutzon Borglum.Named after his father's favorite...

, Mount Rushmore features 60 feet (18.3 m) sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 (in order from left to right) George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

, Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 and Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. The entire memorial covers 1278.45 acres (5.2 km²) and is 5725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson

Doane Robinson

Jonah LeRoy "Doane" Robinson was a state historian of South Dakota who conceived of the idea for the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.-Early life:...

 is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills

Black Hills

The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...

 region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region.