According to the National Park Service, the National Park System had a total of 277,299,880 recreational visits in 2002. When you consider that the population of the entire United States in 2002 was 280 million, it becomes clear that there was virtually one visit to the national park system per U.S. resident!
Here are the top 20 National Parks in terms of recreational visitation in 2002. Note that the statistics listed below are for National Parks only (recreational areas, national historical monuments etc. are not included):
National Park
State
Visitors
Great Smoky Mountains
TN, NC
9,316,420
Grand Canyon
AZ
4,001,974
Olympic
WA
3,691,310
Yosemite
CA
3,361,867
Cuyahoga Valley
OH
3,217,935
Rocky Mountain
CO
2,988,475
Yellowstone
ID,MT,WY
2,973,677
Grand Teton
WY
2,612,629
Zion
UT
2,592,545
Acadia
ME
2,558,572
Glacier
MT
1,905,689
Mammoth Cave
KY
1,891,307
Haleakala
HI
1,521,080
Hot Springs
AR
1,440,227
Shenandoah
VA
1,389,244
Mount Rainer
WA
1,310,390
Joshua Tree
CA
1,178,376
Hawaii Volcanoes
HI
1,110,998
Everglades
FL
968,909
Sequoia
CA
920,292