It has been a record-breaking summer for Yellowstone National Park. More than 2.5 million people visited Yellowstone National Park over June, July and August, a figure that has shattered previous records for the summer season. Visitation for the first eight months of the year was almost 2.87 million.
Yellowstone hosted 854,837 visitors in August. It is the first time August visitation has passed the 800,000 mark, and is up more than 81,000 from the previous August record of 773,307 visitors set back in 1995.
Visitor numbers were up at all five park entrances when compared to levels a year ago. The West Entrance remains the park’s busiest, with more than 345,000 visitors in August. The North Entrance saw the greatest percentage increase in visitors, up a whopping 20 percent from the same month in 2009.
Yellowstone hosted a record number of visitors in 2009. Nearly 3.3 million people visited the world’s first national park last year, up 7.5 percent from 2008 and up 4.6 percent from the previous record of 3.15 million visitors set in 2007. The park is on track to break the 2009 record this year.
July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed by August, June, September, and May.
Detailed park visitation information is available online at www.nature.nps.gov/stats.
