Most Visited U.S. National Parks in 2025: Rankings and Visitor Trends

Overview: Park visits, not all NPS sites

The 63 designated national parks recorded 93,892,121 recreation visits in 2025, compared with 94,287,567 in 2024, a decrease of 395,446 visits (-0.42%). That is different from the 323,014,305 visits reported across all National Park System sites in 2025. The system-wide count also includes national recreation areas, parkways, memorials, and other designations.

Scope of the 2025 ranking: The list is fixed to the 63 units holding national park designation in 2025. Chiricahua was a national monument during 2025 and became the 64th national park on October 20, 2026. It is therefore not a 2025 national-park row. This prevents a change in designations after the data year from altering the historical ranking.

Great Smoky Mountains had 6,543,414 more visits than Zion. The ten most visited parks accounted for 48,756,659 visits (51.93% of the 63-park total). July was the busiest calendar month across the 63 national parks, but the peak month at an individual park may differ: Great Smoky Mountains recorded more visits in October than in July.

Recreation visits count visits, not distinct people. Multiple visits by the same person may appear more than once. NPS values are official published estimates based on each park's counting methods.

Top 10 most visited national parks in 2025

These are the official 2025 counts, with 2024 comparators shown in the notes. Grand Canyon slipped to fourth as Yellowstone moved to third, while Yosemite rose to fifth and Rocky Mountain moved to sixth.

2025 ranking from unrounded NPS recreation-visit counts; change (%) and 2024 rank are calculated from the corresponding 2024 NPS published values.

Charts: Visitor concentration and 2025 monthly seasonality

20 most visited parks: full-year recreation visits

Great Smoky Mountains is the clear outlier by volume; its bar is more than twice Zion's. All 20 values match the full ranking below.

Top 20 parks: 71,168,919 visits, or 75.80% of all 63-park visits. Concentration = sum of top-20 2025 visits / 93,892,121.

All 63 national parks: visits by month, 2025

This chart reproduces the 12 monthly totals published by Chartly in its NPS-derived 2025 compilation for the same 63-park group; the monthly aggregates were not independently rebuilt from 63 NPS park-level files for this page. StatRanker recalculated the peak-to-low ratio and summer share from those 12 published totals and verified that their sum equals the official 2025 63-park annual total of 93,892,121. Green bars mark June, July, and August. The original NPS data package and reproduction steps are listed in Methodology and Sources.

July peaked at 13,878,389 visits; January had 2,975,414 (July was 4.66 times January). June-August contributed 38,801,003 visits (41.33%). This seasonal total reconciles exactly to the annual 63-park sum of 93,892,121.

Seasonality exception: Great Smoky Mountains

Across all 63 parks, July ranked first. At Great Smoky Mountains, October had 1,561,683 visits, exceeding July's 1,435,337 by 126,346. The park's June-August visits were 3,769,537, or 32.70% of its annual total, compared with 41.33% across all national parks. Thus, the summer share at the busiest individual park was 8.63 percentage points lower than the national-park aggregate.

Methodology: What was counted and calculated

We rank recreation visits in calendar year 2025 as reported by NPS Visitor Use Statistics for the 63 units designated national parks during 2025. All rows use the same metric, unit, and target year. The 2024 values are official published comparators, not projections. Chiricahua became the 64th national park on October 20, 2026, after the 2025 measurement year, and is deliberately excluded from this historical cohort. NPS released its 2025 results on March 13, 2026; sources were reviewed October 29, 2026.

Provenance and status: Every individual park's 2025 and 2024 annual recreation visits is an NPS-published official_value. StatRanker-derived calculated_value fields include percentage changes, rank shifts, regional totals and annual concentration shares (inputs: those official park-year values). The all-parks monthly chart instead uses Chartly's published NPS-derived 12-month aggregate as its secondary numeric source; StatRanker calculates summer share and month ratios from that series. Chartly is a separate publisher of aggregates, not a second independent government measurement of recreation visits. The Great Smoky Mountains monthly series was separately checked against the official NPS park report. No forecast or modeled value appears.

Complete ranking: All 63 U.S. national parks in 2025

Search by park or state, filter by analysis region and data status, sort by annual visits or year-over-year change, or limit the view to Top 10 or Top 20. Park ranks always refer to the full 63-park 2025 population, even after applying a filter.

2025 visits: NPS official_value (calendar year 2025). Each note: states, custom analysis region, 2024 NPS official comparison, year-over-year calculated_value, and rank change. All values use recreation visits; no 2025 data were forecast.

Four findings from the 2025 visitation data

What these visitation rankings mean

Use the 2025 rankings to compare the annual number of recorded recreation visits at each national park. The rank is a volume measure, not a direct measure of park size, visitor satisfaction, crowding, conservation impact, economic value, or unique individuals. A small urban-accessible park and a large remote park can have radically different visitation patterns.

For trip planning, nationwide seasonal totals are not enough. The 63-park aggregate is busiest in July, yet the leading park, Great Smoky Mountains, reported an October peak. Monthly park-specific reports are more informative than assuming every national park follows the same summer schedule.

For trend analysis, read the exact 2024 and 2025 visit numbers alongside the calculated percentage and rank change. In particular, a change in park-level counting methodology can dominate recorded movement. Redwood shows why that change is not automatically evidence of equivalent tourist-demand growth. NPS also reported a 43-day partial government shutdown during 2025; no park-specific effect can be inferred from annual totals alone.

Frequently asked questions

Data sources and verification

The annual ranking has one official numeric publishing organization: NPS. A second publisher, Chartly, provides the already-aggregated 12-month series used for the separate seasonal chart; it republishes derived NPS numbers, not independent NPS measurements. The official NPS downloadable package permits a direct reproduction check. Other records below are distinctly labeled as validation, methodology or context sources.