Reading the Numbers

Most-visited U.S. national parks, 2023

Rows are sorted by 2023 recreation visits, highest first. Figures are National Park Service recreation-visit counts. Area is park acreage. Established year is the year the unit became a national park, which is not always the year it was first protected.

Hover a row to highlight it. The visits column keeps an extra spotlight.
Click a park name for a short briefing under the table.
Click a dashed column header for a definition. Fuller definitions are on the Resources page.

Table 1. Twelve U.S. national parks ranked by 2023 recreation visits.

2023 visits	State(s)	Established	Area (acres)	Highest point (ft)	Overnight stays (2023)
13,297,647	TN / NC	1934	522,427	6,643	1,102,418
4,733,705	AZ	1919	1,201,647	9,180	1,437,291
4,623,238	UT	1919	147,243	8,726	643,881
4,501,382	WY / MT / ID	1872	2,219,791	11,358	1,812,407
4,115,837	CO	1915	265,807	14,259	445,219
3,897,070	CA	1890	759,620	13,114	1,612,903
3,879,390	ME	1919	49,075	1,530	512,774
3,410,626	WY	1929	310,044	13,775	703,558
3,270,404	CA	1994	795,156	5,814	548,201
2,947,503	WA	1938	922,650	7,980	612,440
2,908,458	MT	1910	1,013,322	10,466	524,117
2,860,059	OH	2000	32,572	1,164	41,882

Park briefing

Click any park name in the table. The briefing pulls visits, location, size, founding year, high point, overnight stays, and the new density figure into one paragraph.

Analysis: density and overnight use

The first assignment ranked parks by visits and argued, in prose, that access matters more than acreage. This table does that arithmetic. Visits per 1,000 acres is recreation visits divided by acres, times 1,000. Overnight share is overnight stays divided by recreation visits. Neither number is a quality score. Density is a crowding signal. Overnight share is a trip-type signal.

Table 2. The same twelve parks, sorted by visits per 1,000 acres. Cuyahoga Valley and Acadia lead. Yellowstone is last.

Park	2023 visits	Acres	Visits / 1,000 acres	Overnight stays	Overnight share
Cuyahoga Valley	2,860,059	32,572	87,807	41,882	1.5%
Acadia	3,879,390	49,075	79,050	512,774	13.2%
Zion	4,623,238	147,243	31,399	643,881	13.9%
Great Smoky Mountains	13,297,647	522,427	25,454	1,102,418	8.3%
Rocky Mountain	4,115,837	265,807	15,484	445,219	10.8%
Grand Teton	3,410,626	310,044	11,000	703,558	20.6%
Yosemite	3,897,070	759,620	5,130	1,612,903	41.4%
Joshua Tree	3,270,404	795,156	4,113	548,201	16.8%
Grand Canyon	4,733,705	1,201,647	3,939	1,437,291	30.4%
Olympic	2,947,503	922,650	3,195	612,440	20.8%
Glacier	2,908,458	1,013,322	2,870	524,117	18.0%
Yellowstone	4,501,382	2,219,791	2,028	1,812,407	40.3%

Two clusters fall out of Table 2. Compact, easy-to-reach parks (Cuyahoga Valley, Acadia, Zion, the Smokies) pile up day visits on relatively little land, and their overnight share stays under 14%. Destination parks with long trips (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone) sit much lower on density and much higher on overnight share, from 30% to 41%. Visit rank alone puts Yellowstone fourth and Cuyahoga Valley twelfth. Density reverses them.

Walkthrough: three ways to read the grid

Click a paragraph. The matching rows highlight, and the briefing box states the comparison in numbers.

Example 1: Fame is not the same as foot traffic

Grand Canyon is the postcard park. It is not the busiest. Compare Great Smoky Mountains (13.3 million visits, 25,454 per 1,000 acres) with Grand Canyon (4.7 million visits, 3,939 per 1,000 acres). The Smokies sit on a free through-road between Knoxville and Asheville. The Canyon is larger, but most visitors travel into northern Arizona, pay an entrance fee, and often wait for parking.

Click the paragraph to highlight both parks.

Example 2: A small urban park can outdraw a wilderness giant

Compare Yellowstone, the oldest and largest park in this list, with Cuyahoga Valley, 32,572 acres between Cleveland and Akron, designated a national park in 2000. Yellowstone’s overnight share is 40.3%. Cuyahoga’s is 1.5%. The visit totals are in the same range as Glacier and Olympic. The trip types are not.

Click the paragraph to spotlight Yellowstone and Cuyahoga Valley.

Example 3: A small coastal park can be denser than the visit leader

Acadia has about one-tenth the acreage of Great Smoky Mountains and still ranks seventh in visits. Acadia (79,050 visits per 1,000 acres) is denser than the Smokies (25,454). Cadillac Mountain is 1,530 feet. Clingmans Dome is 6,643. Elevation describes the landscape. Density describes how many people are using each slice of it.

Click the paragraph to compare Acadia with Great Smoky Mountains.