Did you know that California is home to more state parks and national parks than any other state across the entire United States? With 270 state parks and 9 national parks throughout California, the total number of acres for the national parks alone exceeds 6.3 million acres. This infographic and interactive map were created by Playground Equipment, and they analyze which states across the country have the most and least amount of national parks and state parks, along with which states see the highest and lowest amounts of their overall land covered by these parks.
According to the research, the ten states with the most state parks include California (270), New York (215), Washington (212), Oregon (195), Florida (191), Massachusetts (154), Illinois (142), Pennsylvania (121), Alaska (119) and Connecticut (109). For national parks across the United States, the four states with the most include California (9), Alaska (8), Utah (5) and Colorado (4).
Following these four states, which have a combined 26 national parks, is a three-way tie between Arizona, Florida and Washington, which each have three national parks.
While California has the most state parks and the most national parks, it’s actually Hawaii that has the highest percentage of their overall land covered by these parks. Of Hawaii’s 4.1 million acres across the entire state, 9.41% of the land is covered by national parks and state parks. Of these parks throughout the state, Hawaii’s two national parks span 358,870 acres, while the 50 state parks take up 30,000 acres. The state with the lowest percentage of land covered by state parks and national parks was Kansas, with only 0.06% of the state’s 52.6 million acres being dedicated to these parks. In Kansas, there aren’t any national parks, but there are 26 state parks which cover approximately 32,000 acres across the state.
