According to the National Park Service, the National Park System had a total of 277,299,880 recreational visits in 2002. When you consider that the population of the entire United States in 2002 was 280 million, it becomes clear that there was virtually one visit to the national park system per U.S. resident!
Here are the top 20 National Parks in terms of recreational visitation in 2002. Note that the statistics listed below are for National Parks only (recreational areas, national historical monuments etc. are not included):
National Park | State | Visitors | |
Great Smoky Mountains | TN, NC | 9,316,420 | |
Grand Canyon | AZ | 4,001,974 | |
Olympic | WA | 3,691,310 | |
Yosemite | CA | 3,361,867 | |
Cuyahoga Valley | OH | 3,217,935 | |
Rocky Mountain | CO | 2,988,475 | |
Yellowstone | ID,MT,WY | 2,973,677 | |
Grand Teton | WY | 2,612,629 | |
Zion | UT | 2,592,545 | |
Acadia | ME | 2,558,572 | |
Glacier | MT | 1,905,689 | |
Mammoth Cave | KY | 1,891,307 | |
Haleakala | HI | 1,521,080 | |
Hot Springs | AR | 1,440,227 | |
Shenandoah | VA | 1,389,244 | |
Mount Rainer | WA | 1,310,390 | |
Joshua Tree | CA | 1,178,376 | |
Hawaii Volcanoes | HI | 1,110,998 | |
Everglades | FL | 968,909 | |
Sequoia | CA | 920,292 |