The National Park Service releases new data showing more than 330 million visits during its centennial, up more than 7 percent from 2015
The National Park Service released its official visitation statistics for 2016 yesterday, logging a whopping 330,971,689 recreational visits during its centennial year, up significantly from what had been a record-breaking 307 million visits in 2015. The numbers continue an upward trend in national park tourism and represent a 7.7 percent increase over 2015.
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See more ›Many individual parks also saw their highest visitation ever in 2016, including Yellowstone, which witnessed more than 4.2 million visits, Yosemite, which recorded more than 5 million visits for the first time, Grand Canyon, which had just shy of 6 million visits, and Great Smoky Mountains, which surpassed 11 million visits for the first time.
The following two lists rank the top 10 most-visited national park sites in the country in 2016. The first list shows the most-visited sites across all of the more than 400 properties managed by the National Park Service. The second list shows the most-visited of the 59 sites designated as national parks (versus national monuments, national historic sites, national recreation areas and other designations).
Curious how these visits are measured? It involves a massive collection of data from numerous sources with methodologies that vary. Learn more about some of the complicated math involved in these statistics.
10 most-visited sites in the National Park System, all designations
| Park Name | Visits in 2016 |
|---|---|
| Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California | 15,638,777 |
| Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina and Virginia | 15,175,578 |
| Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee | 11,312,786 |
| George Washington Memorial Parkway, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia | 10,323,339 |
| Gateway National Recreation Area, New Jersey and New York | 8,651,770 |
| Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. | 7,915,934 |
| Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Arizona and Nevada | 7,175,891 |
| Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona | 5,969,811 |
| Natchez Trace Parkway, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee | 5,891,315 |
| Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C. | 5,299,713 |
10 most-visited national parks
| Park Name | Visits in 2016 |
|---|---|
| Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee | 11,312,786 |
| Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona | 5,969,811 |
| Yosemite National Park, California | 5,028,868 |
| Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado | 4,517,585 |
| Zion National Park, Utah | 4,295,127 |
| Yellowstone National Park, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming | 4,257,177 |
| Olympic National Park, Washington | 3,390,221 |
| Acadia National Park, Maine | 3,303,393 |
| Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming | 3,270,076 |
| Glacier National Park, Montana | 2,946,681 |
About the author
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Jennifer Errick Managing Editor of Online CommunicationsJennifer co-produces NPCA's podcast, The Secret Lives of Parks, and writes and edits a wide variety of online content. She has won multiple awards for her audio storytelling.
