Park overview · JOTR

Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree National Park — National Park in CA.

By Nicholas Major · Last updated

Joshua Tree National Park is a U.S. National Park Service unit in CA (NPS unit code JOTR), straddling the transition between the Mojave and Colorado deserts and built around boulder-strewn high-desert basins where the namesake Joshua trees thrive. The park recorded 2,932,644 recreation visits in 2025 and runs a 5-year mean of 3,063,523 annual visits. Unlike most U.S. National Parks, Joshua Tree's busiest month is March and the quietest is July — peak demand is the spring shoulder, not summer, and a second peak in November and December almost matches it. NPS specifically advises avoiding hiking 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in summer because daytime highs reach 104°F at the gateway station. The park is a designated International Dark Sky Park. This page is the navigation anchor for Joshua Tree coverage on this site: the best-time-to-visit pillar covers month-by-month crowd, weather, dark-sky timing, and the rain-dependent spring wildflower window; the visitation page covers the long-run annual chart through the 2023 record.

Joshua Tree on this site.

Joshua Tree National Park is a U.S. National Park Service unit designated as a National Park, located in CA (NPS unit code JOTR). 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
StateCA
NPS unit codeJOTR
Latest annual visits (2025)2,932,644
5-year mean annual visits3,063,523
Busiest month (5-yr mean)March
Quietest month (5-yr mean)July

On this site

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