Which National Parks Saw the Most Visits?
Key Takeaways
- Great Smoky Mountains recorded 11.5 million visits, more than twice as many as the second-place park and over 15% of all visits across the top 20.
- Seven parks are separated by fewer than one million visits, from Zion at 5.0 million to Acadia at 4.1 million.
- Banff ranks fourth with 4.6 million visits, making it the highest-ranked park outside the United States.
North America is home to some of the world’s most recognizable national parks, from Yellowstone’s geothermal landscapes to the towering peaks of the Canadian Rockies.
This visualization ranks the 20 most-visited designated national parks in the U.S. and Canada, showing which destinations drew the most visits and where they are located.
Figures come from the National Park Service for calendar 2025 and Parks Canada for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Great Smoky Mountains Leads by a Wide Margin
The table ranks all 20 parks by visits, including 18 in the United States and two in Canada.
| Rank | National Park | Country | Visits (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Great Smoky Mountains |  U.S. |
11,527,939 |
| 2 | Zion | U.S. |
4,984,525 |
| 3 | Yellowstone | U.S. |
4,762,988 |
| 4 | Banff |  Canada |
4,558,171 |
| 5 | Grand Canyon | U.S. |
4,430,653 |
| 6 | Yosemite | U.S. |
4,278,413 |
| 7 | Rocky Mountain | U.S. |
4,171,431 |
| 8 | Acadia | U.S. |
4,079,318 |
| 9 | Grand Teton | U.S. |
3,800,648 |
| 10 | Olympic | U.S. |
3,584,187 |
| 11 | Glacier | U.S. |
3,136,557 |
| 12 | Cuyahoga Valley | U.S. |
3,025,325 |
| 13 | Joshua Tree | U.S. |
2,932,644 |
| 14 | Indiana Dunes | U.S. |
2,629,497 |
| 15 | Hot Springs | U.S. |
2,494,611 |
| 16 | Jasper | Canada |
2,392,849 |
| 17 | Gateway Arch | U.S. |
2,209,028 |
| 18 | Bryce Canyon | U.S. |
1,967,367 |
| 19 | New River Gorge | U.S. |
1,958,440 |
| 20 | Hawaiʻi Volcanoes | U.S. |
1,877,854 |
Great Smoky Mountains recorded 6.5 million more visits than second-place Zion. It also attracted more visits than the bottom four parks in the ranking combined.
Accessibility is one advantage. Located along the Tennessee-North Carolina border, Great Smoky Mountains is within a day’s drive of more than half of the U.S. population, helping it consistently rank among the country’s most-visited national parks.
The park also charges no entrance fee, though since March 2023, vehicles parked for longer than 15 minutes have needed a tag costing $5 per day or $40 per year.
Similar Visitor Numbers, Thousands of Miles Apart
From Zion in second place to Acadia in eighth, seven parks are separated by just 905,000 annual visits. They span the U.S. West, Southwest, Northeast, and the Canadian Rockies.
The group includes Zion, Yellowstone, Banff, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, and Acadia. Despite their geographic spread and very different landscapes, each recorded between 4.1 million and 5.0 million visits.
Their tightly clustered totals contrast sharply with Great Smoky Mountains, which sits more than 6.5 million visits ahead of the group.
Banff Is Canada’s Most-Visited National Park
Banff recorded 4.6 million visits in 2025-26, making it Canada’s most-visited national park. Jasper, also located in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, recorded 2.4 million visits and is the only other Canadian park to appear in the top 20.
Established in 1885, Banff was Canada’s first national park and remains one of the country’s best-known natural destinations. Its mountain scenery, turquoise lakes, and proximity to Calgary have helped make the park a major draw for domestic and international travelers.
Mexico also has an extensive national park system, but comparable nationwide visitation data is not centrally reported in the same way as it is in the U.S. and Canada. Available visitation figures reviewed for this ranking indicate that no individual Mexican national park would place among the top 20.
How the Park Visits Were Counted
The two national agencies use slightly different measures. The National Park Service reports recreation visits, which exclude commuter and other through traffic, while Parks Canada counts person-visits for recreational, educational, or cultural purposes and similarly excludes through, local, and commercial traffic.
The ranking covers designated national parks rather than the wider set of monuments, seashores, recreation areas, and other sites administered by the National Park Service. The reporting periods also differ slightly: U.S. figures cover calendar 2025, while Canadian figures cover April 2025 through March 2026.
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- Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/which-national-parks-attract-the-most-visitors-in-north-america/
