North Carolina State Parks experienced a record number of visitors in 2017.

State parks and recreation areas welcomed 19.4 million visitors in 2017, a 3.4 percent increase over the 18.8 million who came during 2016. It was the fourth consecutive year of record visitation.

Among 39 state parks and recreation areas, 27 reported increases in visitation in 2017. Jockeys Ridge State Park in Dare County reported the greatest visitation at 1.56 million, and was among six state park units logging more than a million visitors. The others were Fort Macon and William B. Umstead State Parks and Falls Lake, Jordan Lake and Kerr Lake State Recreation Areas. Six other state park units had more than 750,000 visitors including Lake Norman State Park, which crept closer to a million this year with more than 962,000 visitors.

submitted by Katie Hall