NPS: Great Smoky Mountains National Park records second best year in history, despite COVID pandemic

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and park closures that lasted over 40 days, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park ended 2020 with a near record amount of visitors.

Information from the National Park Service says 12,095,720 visits were tallied to the park last year, falling just short of the park’s 2019 record that saw 12,547,743 total visits. It was the second best performing year in the park’s history dating back to 1979, which even included the only month since that time that the park tallied less than 100,000 visits, as only 99,371 total visits were recorded in April of 2020.

Most areas of the park were closed between March 24th and May 9th before federal park officials began to gradually reopen the areas that were closed off from the public. The months of July and October both recorded over 1.7 million visits each, the best performing months dating back to July of 2000 when the park recorded 1,703,605 total visits.

In a review of all total visits to National Parks in 2020, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park outperformed all others in the National Park system.

To see complete data from the NPS on all 2020 park visits, including the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Library of Congress