Best U.S. national parks, ranked by popularity

Even during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, many of America's national parks are preparing to welcome summer visitors. 

The iconic Yosemite, for example, will require advanced reservations for day visitors during the peak summer season. The goal is to limit the number of visitors, and allow social distancing in the nearly 1,200-square-mile federal preserve. Other national parks, such as Glacier in Montana, also have begun to dole out advance tickets. 2020 visitors: 2,872 2020 visitors: 4,819 2020 visitors: 4,948 2020 visitors: 5,748 2020 visitors: 6,493 2020 visitors: 11,185 2020 visitors: 16,655 2020 visitors: 30,885 2020 visitors: 48,543 2020 visitors: 51,511 2020 visitors: 54,850 2020 visitors: 115,882 2020 visitors: 119,306 2020 visitors: 120,248 2020 visitors: 151,256 2020 visitors: 165,740 2020 visitors: 167,290 2020 visitors: 167,540 2020 visitors: 183,835 2020 visitors: 263,091 2020 visitors: 265,177 2020 visitors: 287,477 2020 visitors: 290,392 2020 visitors: 319,147 2020 visitors: 341,620 2020 visitors: 384,483 2020 visitors: 393,907 2020 visitors: 402,770 2020 visitors: 415,077 2020 visitors: 415,383 2020 visitors: 448,405 2020 visitors: 461,532 2020 visitors: 486,021 2020 visitors: 493,914 2020 visitors: 542,274 2020 visitors: 551,303 2020 visitors: 589,775 2020 visitors: 670,500 2020 visitors: 702,319 2020 visitors: 762,226 2020 visitors: 796,086 2020 visitors: 820,023 2020 visitors: 916,932 2020 visitors: 981,038 2020 visitors: 1,160,754 2020 visitors: 1,238,083 2020 visitors: 1,348,215 2020 visitors: 1,464,655 2020 visitors: 1,666,265 2020 visitors: 1,698,864 2020 visitors: 2,293,106 2020 visitors: 2,293,106 2020 visitors: 2,399,542 2020 visitors: 2,499,177 2020 visitors: 2,669,034 2020 visitors: 2,755,628 2020 visitors: 2,897,098 2020 visitors: 3,289,638 2020 visitors: 3,305,199 2020 visitors: 3,591,254 2020 visitors: 3,806,306 2020 visitors: 12,095,720 Thinking of booking a trip? Here's a ranking of every national park in the United States, determined by the number of 2020 visitors. Located north of the Arctic Circle, Alaska's Gates of the Arctic is almost totally inaccessible to outsiders, has no roads going in or out, and has extensive restrictions on camping and hunting.  The only national park located south of the equator, the National Park of American Samoa is a refuge of tropical forests, coral reefs, beaches and hiking trails.  Another hard-to-access northern Alaskan park, Lake Clark's biggest feature, literally, is its two active volcanoes, Mount Redoubt and Mount Iliamna.  Glacier Bay sees most of its traffic from cruise ship excursions.  Located just south of the Canadian border in Michigan, Isle Royale is actually about 400 islands of various sizes, and is almost entirely a wildlife preserve. Like its Alaskan neighbor Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley is difficult to reach, with limited flights and no road access in or out.  About two-thirds of this gigantic Alaskan park is a 9-million-acre sprawl of wilderness — the biggest of its kind in America. But the accessible parts of the park also include an abandoned mining town only reachable by airplane or a five-mile drive on a gravel road. Sprawling over three Washington counties, North Cascades consists largely of protected forest, glaciers, and mountain peaks. It has very limited accessibility, and it's prone to avalanches and heavy snows.  Located 70 miles west of the Florida Keys, Dry Tortugas are a unique combination of undisturbed wildlife and historical artifacts, including an unfinished Civil War-era fort.  Most of the 4-million-acre Katmai National Park in Alaska is a designated wilderness and off limits to tourists.  Central Alaska's Denali is home to the tallest mountain in North America, now called Denali, but previously known as Mount McKinley. Kenai Fjords is another one of Alaska's parks, featuring a gigantic field of nearly 40 glaciers and extensive bear and whale populations. But unlike many other parks in the state, it's much easier to access.  Located in central South Carolina, Congaree contains the largest remaining wilderness of old growth hardwood forest in the United States.  Great Basin, the largest desert in the United States, sprawls over eastern Nevada. It offers some of the oldest trees in the world, deep caves, and vast landscapes of sagebrush and desert animal habitat. Its highest point is almost a mile above its lowest point.  Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas, and it's just one of the attractions in the park. It also features the world's biggest Permian fossil reef, and a long history intertwined with the struggle of Texas' native people.  The famous rock formations that form the pinnacles are left over from an eroded volcano, and make up most of the sprawling central California park. There are few developed campgrounds, though the eastern and western parts of the park don't connect.  Despite being just off the coast of bustling Los Angeles, the Channel Islands are sparsely populated and mostly undeveloped.  Virgin Islands National Park consists of a few small islands and more than 5,000 acres of open ocean. The park is best known for its diving and abundant sea life, beautiful beaches and well-preserved plantations and mills.  Part of the same range as Texas' Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad has nearly 120 caves total, including the legendary Big Room — one of the largest underground chambers in the world.  Located just south of the U.S.-Canada border in Minnesota, Voyageurs sits on exposed rock formations that are roughly 3 billion years old. The park's main entrances are all on the water, and it's popular with boaters, kayakers, and fishers.  The sprawling Redwood National Park is actually made up of four smaller parks managed by both California and the National Park Service.  Mesa Verde was established to protect some of the most well-preserved Native American pueblos in all of North America, homes carved into the towering rock formations that date back to the 12th century.  Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is the largest cave system in the world, going on for more than 400 miles of twisting tunnels and dead ends.  Located on a dormant volcano on Maui, Haleakalā has more endangered species than any other national park, with more than 100 making their home there. Most of these are rare plants.  The "black" in Black Canyon isn't about the rock or wildlife in this western Colorado park, but darkness — some of the deepest parts of the gorge that make up the park get virtually no sunlight.  While other parks struggle with the effects of human-caused climate change, Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona has a different problem — theft. So much fossilized wood has been stolen from the park that it led to an urban legend: Those who stole pieces were cursed to bad luck.  South Texas' Big Bend National Park is not only a protected wilderness, but also an active border crossing between the U.S. and Mexico. The Rio Grande runs through more than 100 miles of the park, and crossing the border requires a trip via rowboat.  Located south of Miami, Biscayne National Park is almost entirely water, with the only land being a mix of coral and sand islands.  Kings Canyon in California was once one of the most popular parks in America, averaging more than a million visitors per year well into the 1970s. But much of its land was closed off to tourists and declared a protected wilderness in the 1980s.  Already a national monument for decades, White Sands in New Mexico is America's newest national park, designated in December 2019. Before that, it was a major location for movie filming, and it's still heavily visited for sledding, sand skiing and nature walks.  This South Dakota park features the densest cave system in the world, one of the longest individual caves in the world, and the last remaining natural grass prairie in North America.  The dunes that make up this park in southern Colorado are the tallest in North America and stretch on for hundreds of miles. They have fossil beds; appear to move on their own thanks to the wind; and even "sing" when air is pushed through the millions of grains during avalanches.  For most of its life, the area encompassing St. Louis' famous metal arch was a park called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Built to commemorate the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, it was renamed in 2018 and officially designated as a national park to help protect and expand the grounds.  The unique combination of flat land, mountains and rivers that make up Utah's Canyonlands make it a popular destination for hikers, bikers and rafters.  Located in one of the hottest and driest parts of California, Lassen is home to the largest plug dome volcano in the world, the still-active Lassen Peak.  The only such park named after one person, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota pays tribute to the man who did more to protect America's sprawling natural beauty than any other political figure. The park is popular among locals and tourists for its long hikes, scenic drives, foot and horse trails and abundant wildlife.  Making up a large part of the Big Island, the park is home to two active volcanoes: Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, the world's biggest shield volcano.  Oregon's Crater Lake is the deepest in the United States, but you definitely don't want to swim in it without the proper gear. The water is freezing cold — an average of 38 degrees Fahrenheit.  Found at the southern tip of Florida, Everglades is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States, and was created to protect the swampland from being drained for logging.  Designed to preserve the rare cacti of the Arizona desert, Saguaro has a major city, Tucson, and an interstate running down its middle.  World-famous for its gigantic trees, Sequoia in California is home to the tallest tree in the world, the towering General Sherman. Despite being the hottest and driest national park, California's legendary Death Valley is always one of the most popular with visitors, thanks to its striking vistas, biking, camping and night skies.  Badlands is best known for its rolling hills, sharp peaks, its high numbers of American bison, and above all, its abundant fossil beds.  Utah's Capitol Reef has nothing to do with coral or water; it's a 65-million-year-old warp in Earth's crust, full of rock passages that early explorers called "reefs."  Made up almost entirely of protected wilderness, Washington's Mount Rainier attracts huge numbers of hikers, campers and wildlife watchers. The park's iconic rock formations consistently make it one of the country's most popular tourist sites. Hot Springs was the first land in the United States to be reserved by the government for recreational use, predating the National Park System itself.  While more remote than Utah's other parks, Bryce Canyon is famous for its long scenic drives, challenging hikes and for having some of the darkest night skies in the United States.  This park is famous for numerous waterfalls, backcountry camping and its 100-mile Skyline Drive that winds through eight Virginia counties. Montana's Glacier National Park runs right up to the Canadian border and usually draws millions of tourists from both countries.  Here's one of the country's more recent national parks, only getting the designation in early 2019. The area is renowned for its beaches and camping.  Visits to this iconic California park dropped by half in 2020.  Larger than the state of Rhode Island, Joshua Tree has breathtaking vistas. Washington's Olympic National Park features everything from alpine mountains to rainforests to more than 70 miles of untouched coastline.  Maine's Acadia is the only national park in the northeastern United States, and draws visitors from all over the region.  Ohio's only national park has a unique mix of natural features, American history, sprawling wilderness, dense road networks and even several small towns inside its boundaries.  America's most Instagrammed park suffered a huge dip in 2020 visitors, perhaps, in part, because of the year-long closure of its east entrance. That entrance reopened in April 2021. Located in Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone, Grand Teton is popular in its own right for climbing, fishing and backcountry camping. It's also known for its aggressive bears, that, unlike those in other parks, have no problem confronting humans.  Located in northern Colorado, Rocky Mountain is famous for its vast array of hiking trails, from easy walks to brutal backcountry routes only suitable for experienced hikers. Utah's Zion was closed for part of 2020. The result was that animals went back to their natural routines, weren't bothering people for food and some went venturing into areas that animals rarely go into.  As America's first national park, Wyoming's Yellowstone is known for everything from its legendary geysers to the supervolcano it sits atop.  America's most visited national park, Great Smoky Mountains straddles Tennessee and North Carolina, and features everything from mountains and waterfalls to hiking trails and historical attractions.