Number of parks & acreage
- The Minnesota State Park system includes 66 state parks and 6 recreation areas, 8 waysides and 1 state trail that total more than 244,000 acres.
Number of visitors
- In 2000, Minnesota State Parks hosted a 8,513,404 visitors. Day use accounts for most of the visits. Camping accounts for about 10 percent of park visits. About 20 percent of visitors come out of state.
Number of campers
- Nearly 800,000 people camped at state parks in 2000.
Most visited state parks (Annual visits for 2000)
- Fort Snelling - 595,125
- Gooseberry Falls - 573,395
- Itasca - 481,508
- Interstate - 372,780
- Sibley - 360,484
- Split Rock Lighthouse - 343,107
Oldest state parks
- Minnesota became the second oldest state park system in the country with the establishment of Itasca State Park on April 20, 1891.
- The next state park added to the system was Interstate State Park on April 25, 1895.
- The most significant growth years for the park system occurred in 1937, 1957 and 1963. In 1937, 10 new parks were added across the state. In 1957, five parks were added including four along the North Shore. The largest number of parks added at one time (11) occurred in 1963.
State park amenities
- 6,381 picnic sites
- 68 group camps
- 4,378 campsites
- 62 historic districts or landmarks
- 1,600 buildings (595 that are on the National Register of Historic Places)
- 36 beaches
- 1,255 miles of trail
- 33 fishing piers (20 that are accessible to people with disabilities)
- 360 archaeological sites
- 33 visitor centers
- 332 miles of road
- 9 state waysides
- 218 horse camp sites
- 7 scientific and natural areas
- 135 water access sites
- 1 state trail
State Trail Facts
- There are 24 legislatively authorized state trails.
- There are 18 state trails open for public use.
- There are 1,141 miles of state trails open for public use.
- 14 state trails are paved or have a paved segment.
- There are 400 paved state trail miles.
- 9 of the paved state trails provided 896,373 hours of summertime use.
- There are 18,000 miles of grant-in-aid snowmobile trails.