The next four slides use 2023 National Park Service counts for four parks: Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Cuyahoga Valley.
We start with recreation visits, the total usually used to rank a park. Then we add visits per 1,000 acres, which shows how crowded the land is, and overnight share, which shows how many of those visits included a night in the park.
The chart is a preview of that second measure. Bars on the left are visits. Bars on the right are visits per acre. One park changes place when the visits are divided by size. The next slide names it.
The visit rank, plus what it hides
Great Smoky Mountains recorded 13,297,647 recreation visits in 2023, nearly three times the Grand Canyon. Cuyahoga Valley, at about 2.9 million, looks like the quiet park.
Park
2023 visits
Acres
Per 1,000 acres
Overnight share
Great Smoky Mountains
13,297,647
522,427
25,454
8.3%
Grand Canyon
4,733,705
1,201,647
3,939
30.4%
Yellowstone
4,501,382
2,219,791
2,028
40.3%
Cuyahoga Valley
2,860,059
32,572
87,807
1.5%
Overnight share is overnight stays divided by recreation visits. The two highlighted columns are the ones that change the order.
Density reverses the park
Per 1,000 acres, Cuyahoga Valley is the busiest park in this set. The Smokies are crowded too. Yellowstone, the largest park here, is one of the least dense.
Overnight share splits them again. Yellowstone's overnight stays equal about 40% of visits. Cuyahoga's equal 1.5%. Most of that traffic is passing through.
Cuyahoga Valley87,807
Great Smoky Mountains25,454
Grand Canyon3,939
Yellowstone2,028
Bar length is 2023 recreation visits per 1,000 acres.
The leading park is a road
Great Smoky Mountains leads the visit list because people can drive through it. The road in the picture is that kind of trip: counted as a recreation visit, and often over before night.
Park
2023 visits
Overnight stays
Overnight share
Great Smoky Mountains
13,297,647
1,102,418
8.3%
Grand Canyon
4,733,705
1,437,291
30.4%
Yellowstone
4,501,382
1,812,407
40.3%
Cuyahoga Valley
2,860,059
41,882
1.5%
Yellowstone had fewer visits and more nights. Its 1,812,407 overnight stays beat the Smokies, even though the Smokies drew nearly three times the visitors.
The view is not the crowding
Great Smoky Mountains is the park in that fog: 13.3 million visits, about 25,500 per 1,000 acres, and an overnight share of 8.3%.
Cuyahoga Valley is busier per acre, about 87,800, and only 1.5% of its visits include a night. Yellowstone is the other pattern: the largest park here, about 2,000 visits per 1,000 acres, and an overnight share of 40%.
Sort by visits and the Smokies win. Sort by density, or by who stays, and they do not.
