Last year, 10 million more Americans and foreign tourists visited the nation’s national
parks than in 2008, marking the fifth busiest year ever for the National Park System with a
3.9% increase. More than 285 million people visited national parks and other units of the
National Park System during 2009, up from just under 275 million in 2008. This fell just
short of the all-time visitation record of 287.2 million in 1987. Great Smoky Mountain
National Park continued its reign as the most-visited national park in 2009, attracting 9.4
million visitors, while the Blue Ridge Parkway was the most visited unit of the system with
nearly 16 million visitors. The top 10 most visited national parks were:
- Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 9,491,437 visitors
- Grand Canyon National Park, 4,348,068
- Yosemite National Park, 3,737,472
- Yellowstone National Park, 3,295,187
- Olympic National Park, 3,276,459
- Rocky Mountain National Park, 2,822,325
- Zion National Park, 2,735,402
- Cuyahoga Valley National Park, 2,589,288
- Grand Teton National Park, 2,580,081
- Acadia National Park, 2,227,698
