The numbers are in: the number of people who visited Yellowstone National Park in the month of July came close to equaling the number of people who came during the first six months of the year combined.

More than 957,000 visitors came through the park gates in July 2010. That is the largest number of people ever to visit the park in any month, breaking last July’s record numbers by nearly 60,000. It falls on the heels of record visitation in June 2010. It also marks the first time in the park’s history that visitation for the first seven months of the year has topped the 2 million mark. 

Visitor numbers were up at all four entrances when compared to year-ago levels. The West Entrance remains the park’s busiest, with nearly 400,000 visitors recorded this July. The East Entrance saw the greatest percentage increase in visitors, up 9 percent from July 2009. Visitors found that all park lodging and campgrounds were reporting “full” by mid-morning.

July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed by August, June, September, and May. 

Yellowstone hosted a record number of visitors in 2009. Nearly 3.3 million people visited the world’s first national park last year, up 7.5 percent from 2008 and up 4.6 percent percent from the previous record of 3.15 million visitors set in 2007.

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