National Parks by Popularity 2025

Posted by:

Ken Crane

On:

May 14, 2026

Keeping an eye on visitation stats is helpful in understanding the country’s recreation trends and vacation behaviors. As the national parks maintain popularity, the best chance of escaping crowds is to track visitation migration. Of course, some stats will never change—like Great Smoky Mountains remaining the top visited park for 84+ years—but the drastic changes are worth noting.

Starting off, it is important to recognize the overall visitation for all parks combined reached 93,892,121—almost half a million less than 2024. This signifies a dip in park visits since the explosion of outdoor recreation post-covid. For many who find the parks crowded, this is a welcome reprieve. While this is not a dramatic decrease, it does signal a change in vacation trends.

As for individual park rankings, a few changes in 2025 deserve eyebrows raised. At the top, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park rose 4 ranks with an increase of 400,000 visits from 2024. While it is impossible to know the final cause of this significant change, much of this trend is probably due to Kilauea’s increase volcanic activity and displays of lava fountaining, drawing large crowds.

Another exceptional jump is seen in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Nearly doubling its annual visitation from 2024, Lassen Volcanic jumped up 7 ranks in 2025. This could most likely be due to the dangerous wildfire season in 2024 when the park shut down for weeks during peak summer months.

The same goes for North Cascades National Park. In 2024, North Cascades Highway was closed for wildfire safety causing visitation to drop in July. Open for summer 2025, the road nearly tripled the amount of annual visits.

Finally, Redwood National Park is the last notable shift of 2025. The park doubled its intake of visitors from 2024 causing it to rise 10 ranks in 2025. While this may seem incredible, the best explanation for this sudden explosion of guests is not increased foot traffic, but rather more reliable tracking and counting methods. Just goes to show good data makes a difference.

Of the parks that fell in ranking, Petrified Forest National Park numbers dropped by half from 2024 to 2025. The best reasoning for this is the visitor center construction limiting access and counting within the park.

Below is the breakdown for each park and its rank by visitation in the 2025 calendar year.

2025 Annual Visitations per National Park

Rank	National Park	Annual Visitors
1	Great Smoky Mountains	11,527,939
2	Zion	4,984,525
3	Yellowstone	4,762,988
4	Grand Canyon	4,430,653
5	Yosemite	4,278,413
6	Rocky Mountain	4,171,431
7	Acadia	4,079,318
8	Grand Teton	3,800,648
9	Olympic	3,584,187
10	Glacier	3,136,557
11	Cuyahoga Valley	3,025,325
12	Joshua Tree	2,932,644
13	Indiana Dunes	2,629,497
14	Hot Springs	2,494,611
15	Gateway Arch	2,209,028
16	Bryce Canyon	1,967,367
17	New River Gorge	1,958,440
18	Hawai’i Volcanoes	1,877,854
19	Shenandoah	1,682,152
20	Mount Rainier	1,635,342
21	Arches	1,511,740
22	Capitol Reef	1,388,476
23	Sequoia	1,378,337
24	Death Valley	1,320,134
25	Redwood	1,202,480
26	Badlands	1,139,361
27	Haleakala	853,711
28	Saguaro	847,749
29	Canyonlands	796,057
30	Kings Canyon	779,791
31	Everglades	778,198
32	Glacier Bay	740,044
33	Theodore Roosevelt	729,893
34	Mammoth Cave	660,734
35	White Sands	659,742
36	Crater Lake	632,242
37	Wind Cave	606,258
38	Big Bend	568,104
39	Denali	543,300
40	Lassen Volcanic	504,777
41	Biscayne	486,567
42	Virgin Islands	471,074
43	Mesa Verde	463,130
44	Great Sand Dunes	432,498
45	Kenai Fjords	425,369
46	Carlsbad Caverns	410,778
47	Pinnacles	343,208
48	Petrified Forest	315,951
49	Congaree	287,833
50	Black Canyon of the Gunnison	250,086
51	Channel Islands	227,186
52	Guadalupe Mountains	206,423
53	Voyageurs	206,326
54	Great Basin	161,210
55	Wrangell-St. Elias	108,840
56	Dry Tortugas	89,355
57	North Cascades	46,925
58	American Samoa	43,258
59	Katmai	34,479
60	Isle Royale	29,091
61	Lake Clark	19,778
62	Gates of the Arctic	14,923
63	Kobuk Valley	7,786