Sequoia by the year.
Each point is the park's total recreation visits for that calendar year, drawn from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025 (Statistic = TRV, summed from monthly to annual). The full 1979-2025 history is shown: 47 years. The line traces the long-run shape; the orange dot marks the peak year and the teal dot marks the lowest. The table below carries every year's exact count and its year-over-year change.
| Year | Recreation visits | YoY | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | 799,576 | ||
| 1980 | 862,397 | +7.9% | |
| 1981 | 1,083,002 | +25.6% | |
| 1982 | 1,020,500 | -5.8% | |
| 1983 | 854,233 | -16.3% | |
| 1984 | 979,632 | +14.7% | |
| 1985 | 939,468 | -4.1% | |
| 1986 | 1,056,527 | +12.5% | |
| 1987 | 1,139,389 | +7.8% | |
| 1988 | 1,031,129 | -9.5% | |
| 1989 | 1,056,020 | +2.4% | |
| 1990 | 1,063,538 | +0.7% | |
| 1991 | 1,120,278 | +5.3% | |
| 1992 | 961,095 | -14.2% | |
| 1993 | 1,066,552 | +11.0% | |
| 1994 | 1,034,133 | -3.0% | |
| 1995 | 844,582 | -18.3% | |
| 1996 | 838,060 | -0.8% | |
| 1997 | 1,008,931 | +20.4% | |
| 1998 | 861,303 | -14.6% | |
| 1999 | 873,229 | +1.4% | |
| 2000 | 838,947 | -3.9% | |
| 2001 | 870,327 | +3.7% | |
| 2002 | 920,292 | +5.7% | |
| 2003 | 979,297 | +6.4% | |
| 2004 | 1,000,177 | +2.1% | |
| 2005 | 1,004,843 | +0.5% | |
| 2006 | 954,507 | -5.0% | |
| 2007 | 979,537 | +2.6% | |
| 2008 | 930,011 | -5.1% | |
| 2009 | 965,170 | +3.8% | |
| 2010 | 1,002,979 | +3.9% | |
| 2011 | 1,006,583 | +0.4% | |
| 2012 | 1,106,584 | +9.9% | |
| 2013 | 909,274 | -17.8% | |
| 2014 | 1,039,137 | +14.3% | |
| 2015 | 1,097,464 | +5.6% | |
| 2016 | 1,254,688 | +14.3% | |
| 2017 | 1,291,256 | +2.9% | |
| 2018 | 1,229,594 | -4.8% | |
| 2019 | 1,246,053 | +1.3% | |
| 2020 | 796,086 | -36.1% | Reduced ops · pandemic |
| 2021 | 1,059,548 | +33.1% | KNP Complex Fire closures |
| 2022 | 1,153,198 | +8.8% | |
| 2023 | 980,567 | -15.0% | Record snowpack · road washouts |
| 2024 | 1,309,573 | +33.6% | |
| 2025 | 1,378,337 | +5.3% | Highest on record (since 1979) |
What the trend says
Sequoia's annual recreation visits over the full 1979-2025 dataset are remarkably flat for a marquee national park. These are Sequoia National Park figures (unit SEQU), reported separately from the adjacent Kings Canyon. The series begins near 800,000 in 1979 and spends most of the next three decades hovering around a million: the 1980s decade mean was about 1.00 million, the 1990s about 967,000, and the 2000s about 944,000. Unlike the western megaparks that tripled over the same span, Sequoia held a mature, roughly steady plateau, shaped more by its winding mountain access and finite grove-corridor capacity than by runaway demand.
The 2010s stepped the plateau up. Visits climbed into the 1.2-to-1.3 million range from 2016 through 2019 (decade mean about 1.12 million) as national-park travel surged. Then came the disruptions. The all-time low in the full series is 796,086 in 2020, the pandemic year, which displaced the older 1990s-2000s troughs. The 2021 KNP Complex Fire closed the Giant Forest and much of the park for weeks in the fall, holding that year to about 1.06 million. In early 2023, a record Sierra Nevada snowpack and winter storms washed out sections of the Generals Highway, and visits fell to about 981,000.
Recovery since has been strong. The park set consecutive records in 2024 (1.31 million) and 2025 (1.38 million), the highest reading in the full 47-year series. The 47-year mean is roughly 1.02 million, so 2025 sits about 361,000 visits above that long-term mean. Read across the full window, the structural story is a long flat million-visit plateau from 1979 through the 2000s, a 2010s step up, a cluster of 2020s shocks (pandemic, the 2021 fire, the 2023 snowpack washouts), and a record-setting rebound in 2024-2025. Year-to-year movement is driven by wildfire and winter-road disruption rather than by steady demand growth. For seasonal shape, when within the year these visits land, see the per-park month-by-month curve on the best-time-to-visit page.
Common questions
How many people visit Sequoia each year?
Sequoia recorded 1,378,337 recreation visits in 2025, the most recent full year in the official NPS record. Across the full 1979-2025 history the park has averaged about 1,020,000 visits a year.
What is Sequoia's busiest year on record?
The busiest year in the 1979-2025 record is 2025, with 1,378,337 recreation visits. The most recent year, 2025, came in at 1,378,337.
Is Sequoia visitation increasing?
Sequoia visitation moved +5.3% from 2024 to 2025. Over the longer run it is +25.6% versus 2015 (1,097,464 visits), so the recent trend sits well above mid-2010s levels.
What was Sequoia's least-visited year?
The lowest reading in the 1979-2025 record is 2020, with 796,086 recreation visits, about 582,251 below the 2025 figure.
Methodology
Annual recreation visits come from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025 on NPS IRMA Stats. The statistic shown is Recreation Visits, the NPS visitor-count category that excludes Tent Campers, Backcountry Campers, and Recreation Visit Hours. Annual totals are computed by summing the twelve monthly TRV (Total Recreation Visits) values for each year. The window displayed here is the full 1979-2025 history available in the NPS dataset. Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service.
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.