Update Oct. 14: The park accidentally undercounted recreation-visit numbers from one entrance station. The article now reflects the correct figures, with an increase of 9,383 visits.
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. — Yesterday, Oct. 13, Yellowstone National Park announced September visitation figures.
According to the park, this is the busiest September on record and the first time the park hosted over 4 million visitors year-to-date.
Yellowstone National Park hosted 882,078 recreation visits in Sept. 2021. This is a 5% increase from the 837,114 recreation visits in Sept. 2020 and a 27% increase from the 693,118 recreation visits in Sept. 2019.
“Never in Yellowstone’s history have we seen such substantial visitation increases in such a short amount of time,” said Superintendent Cam Sholly. “We will continue working with our teams and partners to develop and implement appropriate short- and long-term actions for managing increasing visitation across the park. My thanks to our teams here for working through a record visitation year, especially with the continued workforce challenges presented by COVID-19.”
So far in 2021, the park has hosted 4,472,982 recreation visits, up 32% from the same period last year, and up 17% from 2019.
The list below shows the year-to-date trend for recreation visits over the last several years, through September:
- 2021 – 4,463,599
- 2020 – 3,393,642*
- 2019 – 3,807,815
- 2018 – 3,860,695
- 2017 – 3,872,775
- 2016 – 3,970,778
According to the park, Yellowstone’s road corridors and parking areas equate to less than 1,750 (0.079%) acres of the park’s 2.2 million acres. Most visitors stay within a half-mile of these corridors.
This summer season, visitation records have been broken in August and July.
