Top Ten Most Visited Parks in 2005

The National Park Service yesterday released their visitation reports for 2005. There is a lot of data contained in these reports. You could easily spends days comparing recreation statistics by region, state, park, and overnight stays, not to mention non-recreation visits to these same areas. So, I'll boil it down to the stat which is easiest to manage in the length of a blog post: popularity! Which places had the most visitation in 2005?

Top 10 Most Visited NPS Units

Rank	Park Name	Visitation
1	Blue Ridge PKWY	17,882,567
2	Golden Gate NRA	13,602,629
3	Great Smoky Mountains NP	9,192,477
4	Gateway NRA	8,294,353
5	Lake Mead NRA	7,692,438
6	George Washington MEM PKWY	7,284,165
7	Natchez Trace PKWY	5,482,282
8	Delaware Water Gap NRA	5,052,264
9	National World War II Memorial	4,410,379
10	Grand Canyon NP	4,401,522

That list includes 3 parkways and 4 recreation areas. In my own experience, I've found that these are areas you would visit in your own backyard, places close to home. If your are interested in the places that are the top ten travel destinations within the Park Service, we could filter the numbers to show only visitation in areas designated as National Parks.

Top 10 Most Visited National Parks

Rank	Park Name	Visitation
1	Great Smoky Mountains NP	9,192,477
2	Grand Canyon NP	4,401,522
3	Yosemite NP	3,304,144
4	Olympic NP	3,142,774
5	Yellowstone NP	2,835,651
6	Rocky Mountain NP	2,798,368
7	Zion NP	2,586,665
8	Cuyahoga Valley NP	2,533,827
9	Grand Teton NP	2,463,442
10	Acadia NP	2,051,484

Whenever I see a list of "top places", there is always a little piece of me which wonders about the other end of the list. And so, in part to satisfy my own curiosity, here are the National Park units that had the fewest visitors in 2005.

Bottom 10 : The Least Visited Park Units

Rank	Park Name	Visitation
10	Kobuk Valley NP	5,037
9	Cape Krusenstern NM	4,664
8	Thomas Stone NHS	4,500
7	Thaddeus Kosciuszko NMEM	4,107
6	Eugene O'Neill NHS	3,652
5	Alibates Flint Quarries NM	2,919
4	Frederick Law Olmsted NHS	2,775
3	Bering Land Bridge NPRES	2,428
2	Rio Grande W&SR	319
1	Aniakchak NM & PRES	285

KEY:

• NHS - National Historic Site
• NM - National Monument
• NMEM - National Memorial
• NP - National Park
• NPRES - National Preserve
• NRA - National Recreation Area
• PKWY - Parkway
• W&SR - Wild Scenic & Recreational River