Statistical abstract: 2018

Ziesler, Pamela

In 2018, visitation to National Park System units exceeded 300 million for the fourth year in a row. The NPS received 318,211,833 recreation visits which is the third highest year for visitation since record-keeping began in 1904. Recreation visits were down 12.7 million visits (3.8% decrease) and recreation visitor hours were down 45.6 million hours (3.2% decrease) from 2017. Twenty eight NPS units set a new record for visitation in 2018 and 17 of these parks broke a record they set in 2017. Three units had over 10 million visits and 77 units (20% of reporting parks) had more than 1 million visits. Several parks passed milestone recreation visit records including Death Valley National Park (over 1.5 million annual recreation visits) and Petroglyph National Monument (over 250,000 annual recreation visits). A few parks passed milestones for accumulated visitation since record keeping began at the park including Minute Man National Historical Park passing 50 million total recreation visits and Boston African American National Historic Site, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, Nez Perce National Historical Park and Scotts Bluff National Monument all passing 10 million total recreation visits. Total annual overnight stays were also down from 2017 (5.8% decrease). Only RV overnight stays in NPS operated campgrounds were up (0.6% increase); all other categories of overnight stays were down. Several factors influenced NPS visitation in 2018. Lingering closures from 2017 hurricanes affected visitation in Caribbean and Florida parks. Wildland fires affected visitation to many California parks, especially Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Yosemite National Park. Kilauea volcano at the heart of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park had a major eruption which caused closures to most of the park mid-May through mid-September. A change has been made to the content of this abstract. Acreage data have been removed from this and future abstracts. National Park Service acreage reports for 2018 and previous years can be found online at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lwcf/acreagereports.htm or through a link on the NPS Visitor Use Statistics National Reports page under Park Acreage Reports (1997 – Last Calendar / Fiscal Year). In the pages that follow, a series of tables and figures display visitor use data for calendar year 2018. By documenting these visits across the National Park System, the NPS Statistical Abstract offers a historical record of visitor use in NPS units and provides NPS staff and partners with a useful tool for effective management and planning. In 2018, 385 of 418 NPS units collected visitor use data; the remainder are unable to do so for a variety of reasons, such as administration by another agency, non-federal land ownership or new parks that lack staff and facilities for management of visitor statistics. The responsibility for compiling and summarizing visitation records lies with the Social Science Program in the Environmental Quality Division, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate. The Program relies on the conscientious efforts of NPS field staff to count, record and report visitor use. This system of collecting and analyzing monthly visitor use data is combined with continuous review and assessment of park counting procedures to ensure consistency and accuracy of data. Detailed, unit-specific instructions for the units that collect data are available on the Visitor Use Statistics website (https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/). In addition to this Abstract, the Social Science Program produces monthly visitation summaries and reports displaying trends in park visitation and changes in visitation patterns over time. These reports are available on the Visitor Use Statistics website.

Statistical abstract: 2018

Series

Collections