Park overview · GRSM

Great Smoky Mountains.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: National Park in TN · NC.

By Nicholas Major · Last updated

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a U.S. National Park Service unit in TN · NC (NPS unit code GRSM), straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border along the southern Appalachian crest with Newfound Gap Road climbing across the park's pinnacle. The park recorded 11,527,939 recreation visits in 2025 and runs a 5-year mean of 12,823,320 annual visits, the most-visited NPS unit in the system. The busiest month is October and the quietest is January; uniquely, fall foliage drives a peak above July, and June, July, and October fall within 10% of each other so no single month dominates. There is no entrance fee, though a Park It Forward parking tag is required for any vehicle parked more than 15 minutes. This page is the navigation anchor for Great Smoky coverage on this site: the best-time-to-visit pillar covers month-by-month crowd, weather, and access including the Cataloochee elk rut, the synchronous-firefly lottery, and the Park It Forward parking system; the visitation page covers the long-run annual chart through the 2021 record.

Great Smoky Mountains on this site.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a U.S. National Park Service unit designated as a National Park, located in TN · NC (NPS unit code GRSM). For when to go, what each month looks like, and the access calendar, follow the best-time-to-visit page. For the long-run visitation history and the disruption events that shaped recent years, follow the visitation page.

Park data card

FieldValue
DesignationNational Park
StatesTN · NC
NPS unit codeGRSM
Latest annual visits (2025)11,527,939
5-year mean annual visits12,823,320
Busiest month (5-yr mean)October
Quietest month (5-yr mean)January

On this site

Month by month

By state

Methodology

Identity, designation, and coordinates come from the official NPS unit page. Annual recreation visits, busiest month, and quietest month are computed from the NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025 on NPS IRMA Stats. This hub does not duplicate the per-month editorial that lives on the best-time page or the year-by-year chart that lives on the visitation page; follow those links for the deep view. 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 · 2026-05-28