By state · IL

National Parks in Illinois.

Illinois's NPS network at a glance: units, designations, visit totals, and what shapes the visiting season.

By Nicholas Major · Last updated

Illinois has more than five NPS units, anchored by Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield and Pullman National Historical Park in Chicago. Lincoln Home is the only home Abraham Lincoln ever owned. Pullman preserves the planned company town built around the Pullman railcar works, a landmark of American labor history. Other units include trail segments of the Lewis and Clark, Trail of Tears, Mormon Pioneer, and Underground Railroad routes. Chicago O'Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW) anchor the northern state; Springfield (SPI) is closest to Lincoln Home; St. Louis (STL, Missouri) reaches the southern trail segments. Lincoln Home tours are free year-round but need a same-day ticket from the visitor center. Arrive early in summer.

Every NPS unit in Illinois.

Illinois's 8 NPS units: 3 National Historic Trails · 2 National Historic Sites · 2 National Monuments · 1 National Historical Park. Combined 5-year-average annual visits: 165,906 (multi-state units count their full visits in every state they touch, see methodology). The most-visited unit is Lincoln Home National Historic Site at about 134K annual visits.

Every National Park Service site in Illinois, mapped. Each glowing marker is one site, placed at its real coordinates and colored by type. Select a marker for its yearly visits and a link, or use the filters to show or hide a group. 4 of 8 units are mapped here; long-distance trails and units centered in another state are in the table below.
National Park Service sites in Illinois, mapped Interactive map of Illinois showing the location of 4 National Park Service sites, colored by type: national parks, monuments and memorials, historic sites, recreation areas and seashores, rivers, trails and parkways, and other sites. Each site is also listed with its yearly visits in the table below the map. 2

Marker positions are each unit's official NPS coordinates. State outline: U.S. Census cartographic boundary (public domain). Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service.

UnitDesignation5-yr avg visitsBusiest month
Lincoln Home National Historic Site National Historic SiteLIHO 134,419 July
Pullman National Historical Park National Historical ParkPULL 27,849 July
Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument National MonumentTILL 3,638 June
Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail National Historic TrailLECL — —
Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail National Historic TrailMOPI — —
New Philadelphia National Historic Site National Historic SiteNEPH — —
Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument National MonumentSPRA — —
Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail National Historic TrailTRTE — —

Methodology

Unit list and per-unit visit counts come from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025. The "5-year average visits" column is the mean of 2021-2025 Recreation Visits. Multi-state NPS units (Yellowstone, Death Valley, Great Smoky Mountains and others) are listed under every state they touch; the per-unit visit count is the unit's total, not a per-state share. Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service.

Adjacent reading

Independence

Independent site. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Park Service. Data comes from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025; editorial analysis is ours. The NPS Arrowhead and other NPS marks are not used.

Last updated · 2026-05-19