Yellowstone Breaks September and Annual Visitation Records

Date: October 5, 2010
Contact: Al Nash, 307-344-2015

National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior

Yellowstone National Park
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
   
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2010   10-114   
Al Nash [phone]

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK NEWS RELEASE
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Yellowstone Breaks September and Annual Visitation Records

It’s official. Yellowstone National Park has already broken last year’s record visitation figure, with three months left in the calendar year.

For the first time ever, Yellowstone National Park hosted over half a million visitors during September. The 550-thousand recreational visitors to the park last month shattered the previous September record of nearly 490-thousand set last year. September was the fourth record breaking month in a row for Yellowstone. 

Park visitation during the first nine months of the year topped 3.41 million, above the 3.14 million who came to Yellowstone during the same period on 2009. With three months to go in 2010, year-to-date visitation has topped last year’s record annual visitation record of 3,295,187.

Recreational Visitors	2010	2009	Change
May	250,445	261,763	- 4.3 %
June	694,841	643,844	+ 7.9 %
July	957,785	900,515	+ 6.4 %
August	854,837	752,983	+ 13.5 %
September	550,504	489,438	+ 12.5 %
Total Year-To-Date	3,416,905	3,143,816	+  8.7 %

Recreational Visitors	September	Year-to-Year Change
2010	550,504	+ 12.5 %
2009	489,438	+ 11.9 %
2008	437,552	-  5.7 %
2007	463,994	+ 8.3 %
2006	428,369	+ 8.9 %
2005	393,362

Visitation figures were up at all five park entrances when compared to year-ago levels. The West Entrance remains the park’s busiest, with nearly 216,000 visitors in September.

July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed by August, June, September, and May. In 2009, the park recorded just over 150,000 visitors during the months of October, November, and December.

Detailed park visitation information is available online at http://www.nature.nps.gov/stats/.

- www.nps.gov/yell -