Which national parks get the most visitors?

Great Smoky Mountains had 11.5 million recreation visits in 2025, the most of the 63 national parks and 2.3 times as many as the next, Zion (4.98 million). Yellowstone (4.76 million) came third, while Kobuk Valley had about 7,800. A visit is one person entering a park for recreation on one day, estimated by each park from traffic counters and sampling.

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Key facts

Measure: Recreation visits in the year. Written from the data below.

  • Great Smoky Mountains has the highest figure, 11.5M, followed by Zion (4.98M) and Yellowstone (4.76M).
  • Kobuk Valley has the lowest figure, 7,786, followed by Gates of the Arctic (14,923) and Lake Clark (19,778).
  • The highest is 1,481 times the lowest.

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Source and date

Source
National Park Service, Visitor Use Statistics
License
Public domain (U.S. government work); source National Park Service
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “Which national parks get the most visitors?” Chart. Data: National Park Service, Visitor Use Statistics, https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/ (data as of December 31, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/most-visited-national-parks (accessed November 5, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

National park Recreation visits in the year
Great Smoky Mountains 11,527,939
Zion 4,984,525
Yellowstone 4,762,988
Grand Canyon 4,430,653
Yosemite 4,278,413
Rocky Mountain 4,171,431
Acadia 4,079,318
Grand Teton 3,800,648
Olympic 3,584,187
Glacier 3,136,557
Cuyahoga Valley 3,025,325
Joshua Tree 2,932,644
Indiana Dunes 2,629,497
Hot Springs 2,494,611
Gateway Arch 2,209,028
Bryce Canyon 1,967,367
New River Gorge 1,958,440
Hawaii Volcanoes 1,877,854
Shenandoah 1,682,152
Mount Rainier 1,635,342
Arches 1,511,740
Capitol Reef 1,388,476
Sequoia 1,378,337
Death Valley 1,320,134
Redwood 1,202,480
Badlands 1,139,361
Haleakala 853,711
Saguaro 847,749
Canyonlands 796,057
Kings Canyon 779,791
Everglades 778,198
Glacier Bay 740,044
Theodore Roosevelt 729,893
Mammoth Cave 660,734
White Sands 659,742
Crater Lake 632,242
Wind Cave 606,258
Big Bend 568,104
Denali 543,300
Lassen Volcanic 504,777
Biscayne 486,567
Virgin Islands 471,074
Mesa Verde 463,130
Great Sand Dunes 432,498
Kenai Fjords 425,369
Carlsbad Caverns 410,778
Pinnacles 343,208
Petrified Forest 315,951
Congaree 287,833
Black Canyon of the Gunnison 250,086
Channel Islands 227,186
Guadalupe Mountains 206,423
Voyageurs 206,326
Great Basin 161,210
Wrangell-St. Elias 108,840
Dry Tortugas 89,355
North Cascades 46,925
American Samoa 43,258
Katmai 34,479
Isle Royale 29,091
Lake Clark 19,778
Gates of the Arctic 14,923
Kobuk Valley 7,786

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