NEWS RELEASES
More Than 318 Million Visited National Parks In 2018
Editor's Note: This news item was retrieved and first published through The National Park Service's website.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Visitation to the 418 national parks and recreation areas topped 300 million for the fourth consecutive year in 2018, according to a study released by the National Park Service (NPS). The 318.2 million visits were the third highest since the NPS started keeping records in 1904. Nearly 14 million stayed overnight in one of the parks in 2018. About 1.6 billion visits to the parks have taken place during the past five years.
Three parks had over 10 million recreation visits each in 2018 – Blue Ridge Parkway, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Golden Gate and the Blue Ridge Parkway were the most visited of all parks in the NPS system for 2018, with the San Francisco park taking top place last year with more than 15 million visits. Seventy-seven parks, about 20 percent of the total, had over 1 million recreation visits each; and 28 parks set new records for visitation. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park with 11.4 million visits and Grand Canyon National Park with 6.4 million visits remain the most visited in the national park category, a position they have held since 1990.
For an in-depth look at 2018 visitation, including individual park figures, visit the NPS Social Science website.
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