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Most Popular States for National Park Visits

Most Popular States for National Park Visits

On March 1, 1872, the U.S. Congress established Yellowstone as the world’s first national park. Situated mostly in what would later become the state of Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park was placed under control of the U.S. Department of the Interior “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

Today this natural reserve that kicked off a global national park movement isn’t even Wyoming’s most popular park. In 2021, Wyoming’s most visited national park was the rugged alpine terrain of Grand Teton, about 10 miles south of Yellowstone in the northern section of Jackson Hole Valley. 

To identify the states where people visit national parks the most, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the visitation reports by state and by park for year 2021 from the National Park Service, ranking states based on total visits to each one’s parks. Included in our count of national parks are national parkways, national seashores, and national recreation areas. (Population data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Every U.S. state – as well as Washington D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa – has at least one national park. California and Alaska lead with nine and eight national parks, respectively, and California is also the state recording the most national park visits. (Alaska doesn’t make the top 20, likely because of the relative inaccessibility of many of its parks. For the same reason, it occupies the top three slots on our list of America’s least popular national parks.)

California is also the site of the single most popular national park in the nation, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of San Francisco, which attracts more than 13 million visitors every year. 

Among the other most visited U.S. national parks are Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola, Florida; Utah’s Zion National Park; and the Blue Ridge Parkway of North Carolina. In all, a dozen parks attract more than four million visitors apiece each year, among them Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, New York’s Gateway National Recreation Area, and Virginia’s George Washington Memorial Parkway. Virginia also records the second-highest number of overall park visits after California. (These are all of America’s most visited national parks.)

Source: CE Photography / Shutterstock

20. New Jersey
> Total visits to parks in state: 5,561,120
> Most visited park: Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (3,082,041 visits)
> State population: 9,288,994

Source: tristanbnz / iStock via Getty Images

19. Nevada
> Total visits to parks in state: 5,880,514
> Most visited park: Lake Mead National Recreation Area (5,702,603 visits)
> State population: 3,104,614

Source: Maxine Weiss / iStock via Getty Images

18. Texas
> Total visits to parks in state: 5,887,579
> Most visited park: San Antonio Missions National Historical Park (1,335,071 visits)
> State population: 29,145,505

Source: HaizhanZheng / E+ via Getty Images

17. Montana
> Total visits to parks in state: 5,946,417
> Most visited park: Glacier National Park (3,081,656 visits)
> State population: 1,084,225

Source: photommo / Flickr

16. Pennsylvania
> Total visits to parks in state: 6,252,092
> Most visited park: Independence National Historical Park (1,495,686 visits)
> State population: 13,002,700

Source: Sean Pavone / iStock via Getty Images

15. Georgia
> Total visits to parks in state: 6,335,804
> Most visited park: Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (3,256,151 visits)
> State population: 10,711,908

Source: The best photo is earned / iStock via Getty Images

14. Mississippi
> Total visits to parks in state: 6,642,885
> Most visited park: Natchez Trace Parkway (5,121,078 visits)
> State population: 2,961,279

Source: Douglas Rissing / iStock via Getty Images

13. Maryland
> Total visits to parks in state: 6,675,116
> Most visited park: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park (3,803,964 visits)
> State population: 6,177,224

Source: DenisTangneyJr / iStock via Getty Images

12. Massachusetts
> Total visits to parks in state: 6,694,799
> Most visited park: Cape Cod National Seashore (4,017,239 visits)
> State population: 7,029,917

Source: benedek / E+ via Getty Images

11. Colorado
> Total visits to parks in state: 7,819,152
> Most visited park: Curecanti National Recreation Area (1,043,725 visits)
> State population: 5,773,714

Source: shesnuckinfuts / Flickr

10. Washington
> Total visits to parks in state: 8,176,244
> Most visited park: Olympic National Park (2,718,925 visits)
> State population: 7,705,281

Source: aparlette / Flickr

9. Wyoming
> Total visits to parks in state: 8,586,450
> Most visited park: Grand Teton National Park (3,885,230 visits)
> State population: 576,851

Source: tristanbnz / iStock via Getty Images

8. Arizona
> Total visits to parks in state: 10,683,594
> Most visited park: Grand Canyon National Park (4,532,677 visits)
> State population: 7,151,502

Source: gelyngfjell / iStock via Getty Images

7. Tennessee
> Total visits to parks in state: 11,030,447
> Most visited park: Great Smoky Mountains National Park (7,930,467 visits)
> State population: 6,910,840

Source: Kirkikis / iStock via Getty Images

6. New York
> Total visits to parks in state: 11,952,676
> Most visited park: Gateway National Recreation Area (7,241,164 visits)
> State population: 20,201,249

Source: gnagel / iStock via Getty Images

5. Florida
> Total visits to parks in state: 13,442,112
> Most visited park: Gulf Islands National Seashore (4,386,253 visits)
> State population: 21,538,187

Source: jose1983 / iStock via Getty Images

4. Utah
> Total visits to parks in state: 14,796,738
> Most visited park: Zion National Park (5,039,835 visits)
> State population: 3,271,616

Source: WerksMedia / iStock via Getty Images

3. North Carolina
> Total visits to parks in state: 20,983,351
> Most visited park: Blue Ridge Parkway (9,887,851 visits)
> State population: 10,439,338

Source: OGphoto / iStock via Getty Images

2. Virginia
> Total visits to parks in state: 22,233,319
> Most visited park: George Washington Memorial Parkway (6,821,179 visits)
> State population: 8,631,393

Source: lucky-photographer / iStock via Getty Images

1. California
> Total visits to parks in state: 35,099,250
> Most visited park: Golden Gate National Recreation Area (13,712,614 visits)
> State population: 39,538,223

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