STATISTICS / CROWDING
Gateway Arch gets about 11,456 visits per acre
Gateway Arch is the most crowded national park: 2,209,028 recreation visits in 2025 on 193 acres. Gates of the Arctic is the least crowded: 14,923 visits on 8,472,506 acres, or about 0.002 visits per acre. The table below ranks all 63 national parks.
Visits per acre measures how visits spread across the whole park boundary. It does not measure how crowded a trail or viewpoint is.
Updated . NPS visit data downloaded October 2026. Acreage from the Listing of Acreage, 31 December 2025.
Main numbers
- 11,456 visits per acreGateway Arch, the most crowded national park (2,209,028 visits on 193 acres).
- 0.002 visits per acreGates of the Arctic, the least crowded (14,923 visits on 8,472,506 acres).
- 18 of 63 parksget 10 or more visits per acre. 15 parks get fewer than 1 visit per acre.
- 22.1 visits per acreGreat Smoky Mountains is the most visited park (11,527,939 visits) but ranks 11th per acre.
All 63 national parks, most crowded first
Each bar shows 2025 recreation visits divided by gross acres. The bars use a log scale: the most crowded park gets about 6.5 million times more visits per acre than the least crowded, so a linear scale would hide every park but Gateway Arch. Each bar is labeled with its value.
All 63 national parks (2025)
A recreation visit is one entry, not one unique person. Acres are gross acres inside the park boundary, from the NPS Listing of Acreage. Where np.guide has a field guide for the park, the park name is a link to it. Select a column name to sort the table.
Download the data as CSV (same columns).
| Park | 2025 visits | Acres | Visits per acre ▼ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gateway Arch | 2,209,028 | 193 | 11,456 |
| Hot Springs | 2,494,611 | 5,554 | 449 |
| Indiana Dunes | 2,629,497 | 16,035 | 164 |
| Cuyahoga Valley | 3,025,325 | 32,607 | 92.8 |
| Acadia | 4,079,318 | 49,077 | 83.1 |
| Bryce Canyon | 1,967,367 | 35,835 | 54.9 |
| Zion | 4,984,525 | 147,243 | 33.9 |
| Virgin Islands | 471,074 | 15,041 | 31.3 |
| New River Gorge | 1,958,440 | 72,391 | 27.1 |
| Haleakala | 853,711 | 33,489 | 25.5 |
| Great Smoky Mountains | 11,527,939 | 522,427 | 22.1 |
| Arches | 1,511,740 | 76,679 | 19.7 |
| Wind Cave | 606,258 | 33,971 | 17.8 |
| Rocky Mountain | 4,171,431 | 265,918 | 15.7 |
| Pinnacles | 343,208 | 26,686 | 12.9 |
| Grand Teton | 3,800,648 | 310,044 | 12.3 |
| Congaree | 287,833 | 26,693 | 10.8 |
| Theodore Roosevelt | 729,893 | 70,447 | 10.4 |
| Mammoth Cave | 660,734 | 72,042 | 9.17 |
| Saguaro | 847,749 | 92,800 | 9.14 |
| Mesa Verde | 463,130 | 52,485 | 8.82 |
| Carlsbad Caverns | 410,778 | 46,766 | 8.78 |
| Redwood | 1,202,480 | 139,091 | 8.65 |
| Shenandoah | 1,682,152 | 200,454 | 8.39 |
| Black Canyon of the Gunnison | 250,086 | 30,780 | 8.12 |
| Mount Rainier | 1,635,342 | 236,382 | 6.92 |
| Capitol Reef | 1,388,476 | 241,905 | 5.74 |
| Yosemite | 4,278,413 | 761,748 | 5.62 |
| Hawaii Volcanoes | 1,877,854 | 344,812 | 5.45 |
| National Park of American Samoa | 43,258 | 8,257 | 5.24 |
| Lassen Volcanic | 504,777 | 106,589 | 4.74 |
| Badlands | 1,139,361 | 242,743 | 4.69 |
| White Sands | 659,742 | 146,344 | 4.51 |
| Olympic | 3,584,187 | 923,046 | 3.88 |
| Joshua Tree | 2,932,644 | 795,156 | 3.69 |
| Grand Canyon | 4,430,653 | 1,201,647 | 3.69 |
| Crater Lake | 632,242 | 183,224 | 3.45 |
| Sequoia | 1,378,337 | 404,063 | 3.41 |
| Glacier | 3,136,557 | 1,013,126 | 3.1 |
| Great Sand Dunes | 432,498 | 149,023 | 2.9 |
| Biscayne | 486,567 | 172,971 | 2.81 |
| Guadalupe Mountains | 206,423 | 86,367 | 2.39 |
| Canyonlands | 796,057 | 337,598 | 2.36 |
| Yellowstone | 4,762,988 | 2,219,791 | 2.15 |
| Great Basin | 161,210 | 77,180 | 2.09 |
| Kings Canyon | 779,791 | 461,901 | 1.69 |
| Petrified Forest | 315,951 | 221,390 | 1.43 |
| Dry Tortugas | 89,355 | 64,701 | 1.38 |
| Voyageurs | 206,326 | 218,223 | 0.945 |
| Channel Islands | 227,186 | 249,561 | 0.91 |
| Big Bend | 568,104 | 801,162 | 0.709 |
| Kenai Fjords | 425,369 | 669,650 | 0.635 |
| Everglades | 778,198 | 1,400,539 | 0.556 |
| Death Valley | 1,320,134 | 3,408,375 | 0.387 |
| Glacier Bay | 740,044 | 3,281,789 | 0.226 |
| North Cascades | 46,925 | 504,781 | 0.093 |
| Denali | 543,300 | 6,075,029 | 0.089 |
| Isle Royale | 29,091 | 571,790 | 0.051 |
| Katmai | 34,479 | 4,093,228 | 0.008 |
| Wrangell-St. Elias | 108,840 | 13,175,791 | 0.008 |
| Lake Clark | 19,778 | 4,030,110 | 0.005 |
| Kobuk Valley | 7,786 | 1,750,716 | 0.004 |
| Gates of the Arctic | 14,923 | 8,472,506 | 0.002 |
Methodology
- Visits: NPS Visitor Use Statistics (IRMA), annual recreation visits for each park in 2025, the latest full calendar year, exported October 2026. Sequoia (SEQU) and Kings Canyon (KICA) are separate units.
- Acres: gross area acres from the NPS Land Resources Division Listing of Acreage, 31 December 2025. Gross acres are federal plus non-federal land inside the park boundary.
- Seven parks have one IRMA visit count for a park plus an adjacent preserve: Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Great Sand Dunes, Katmai, Lake Clark, and Wrangell-St. Elias. Their acres are the sum of both units. New River Gorge is already one unit in both sources.
- Visits per acre is visits divided by acres. The table rounds acres to whole numbers; the division uses full acres.
- Visits spread unevenly inside a park. Gateway Arch visits concentrate around the Arch grounds. The Alaska parks include large areas with no road access. A low number does not mean every part of the park is empty.
Sources
- NPS Visitor Use Statistics (IRMA). Annual Park Recreation Visitation report for each park.
Park=takes the four-letter park code. - NPS Land Resources Division. Listing of Acreage reports, including 31 December 2025.
Cite this page
np.guide. "Visits per acre at each national park." Updated 25 October 2026. https://np.guide/statistics/visits-per-acre
Quotable summaries
Gateway Arch is the most crowded national park, with about 11,456 visits per acre.
Gates of the Arctic is the least crowded national park, with about 0.002 visits per acre.
18 of the 63 national parks get 10 or more visits per acre; 15 get fewer than 1.
Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park but ranks 11th per acre.