1Score 97.6 out of 100
National Park
Grand Canyon National Park
A mile-deep gorge cut by the Colorado River through two billion years of rock, and the fifteenth US national park.
Arizona Places
A sourced database of 727 Arizona attractions across 15 counties. 48 carry an official visitor count; every figure on this site names where it came from.
Most popular attractions in Arizona
- 2Score 79.2 out of 100
National Recreation Area
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
A National Park Service unit around Lake Powell, covering 1.25 million acres of high desert in Arizona and Utah. - 3Score 78.2 out of 100
Landmark
Hoover Dam
A concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, built between 1931 and 1936. - 4Score 76.1 out of 100
Natural Landmark
Meteor Crater
An impact crater 3,900 feet across in northern Arizona, and the first on Earth confirmed to have been formed by a meteorite. - 5Score 75.8 out of 100
National Park
Petrified Forest National Park
A national park of petrified wood and eroded badlands in north-eastern Arizona, crossed by historic Route 66. - 6Score 75.5 out of 100
National Park
Saguaro National Park
Two districts of Sonoran Desert either side of Tucson, preserving the giant saguaro cactus the park is named for.
Most visited, by published count
- 1Score 97.6 out of 100
4,919,163 visits
Grand Canyon National Park
A mile-deep gorge cut by the Colorado River through two billion years of rock, and the fifteenth US national park. - 2Score 79.2 out of 100
4,725,610 visits
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
A National Park Service unit around Lake Powell, covering 1.25 million acres of high desert in Arizona and Utah. - 3Score 75.5 out of 100
946,369 visits
Saguaro National Park
Two districts of Sonoran Desert either side of Tucson, preserving the giant saguaro cactus the park is named for. - 4Score 75.8 out of 100
559,254 visits
Petrified Forest National Park
A national park of petrified wood and eroded badlands in north-eastern Arizona, crossed by historic Route 66. - 5Score 46.5 out of 100
468,535 visits
Lake Havasu State Park
A recreation area on the Colorado River reservoir at Lake Havasu City, with camping, boating and fishing. - 6Score 55.3 out of 100
467,016 visits
Slide Rock State Park
A natural water slide formed by the bed of Oak Creek north of Sedona, set on a 43-acre working apple farm.
Most read about in August
- Score 45.5 out of 100
78% above its yearly average
Woods Canyon Lake
A 55-acre reservoir on the Mogollon Rim east of Payson, the most developed of the Rim Lakes and stocked with trout. - Score 43.0 out of 100
75% above its yearly average
Willow Springs Lake
A canyon-bound cold-water lake on the Mogollon Rim, 23 miles east of Payson, and one of the Rim Lakes in the Apache-Sitgreaves forests. - Score 43.0 out of 100
75% above its yearly average
Cienega of San Simon
A former cienega, or area of springs, 13 miles up the San Simon River from San Simon Station in Cochise County. - Score 41.0 out of 100
70% above its yearly average
Brunckow's Cabin
A ruined cabin south-west of Tombstone where at least twenty-one people were killed between 1860 and 1890, many buried on the site. - Score 46.6 out of 100
54% above its yearly average
Big Lake
A trout reservoir in the White Mountains of Apache County, managed by the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and frozen over each winter. - Score 40.4 out of 100
52% above its yearly average
Rainbow Lake
A 116-acre man-made lake near Pinetop-Lakeside, created in 1903 when settlers dammed Walnut Creek for irrigation.
Places you might not know
- Score 44.3 out of 100
Natural Landmark
North Kaibab Trail
The Grand Canyon's North Rim trail, descending steeply to Roaring Springs and on to the Colorado River. - Score 25.5 out of 100
Natural Landmark
Ear of the Wind
Ear of the Wind is a rock arch in Monument Valley, Navajo County, Arizona, standing directly beside a sand dune. - Score 54.4 out of 100
Historic Site
Navajo Nation Council Chamber
The seat of government of the Navajo Nation at Window Rock, a red sandstone building declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004. - Score 25.5 out of 100
Natural Landmark
Tucson Mountain Park
Tucson Mountain Park, south-west of Tucson, Arizona, covers a mountain range with trails through saguaro stands popular for sunset photography. - Score 39.0 out of 100
Botanical Garden
Japanese Friendship Garden
A 3.5-acre Japanese stroll garden in Phoenix, built jointly with the sister city of Himeji and named a Phoenix Point of Pride in 2004. - Score 25.5 out of 100
Natural Landmark
Black Hills Rockhound Area
A BLM-managed rockhounding site near Safford where fire agate is the most common and most valuable gemstone found.
Browse by destination
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44 attractionsPhoenix
42 attractionsMonument Valley
31 attractionsTempe
30 attractionsFlagstaff
28 attractionsGrand Canyon
24 attractionsSedona
24 attractionsVermilion Cliffs National Monument
17 attractions
Browse by category
National Parks
Established by Congress for nationally significant scenery or resources.National Recreation Areas
Large federally managed areas centred on water-based or dispersed recreation.National Monuments
Federally protected landmarks, structures or objects of historic or scientific interest.National Historic Sites
Federally protected places commemorating a specific historic event or person.State Parks
Protected and managed by the state parks agency.Canyons
Gorges and slot canyons visited primarily for the landform itself.Waterfalls
Falls that are themselves the destination.State Historic Parks
Buildings and sites of state historical significance, managed by the state parks agency.
Rankings
Most Visited Places in Arizona
48 attractions with published countsMost Popular Attractions in Arizona
727 attractionsMost Popular National Park Sites in Arizona
25 national park sitesBest Natural Attractions in Arizona
255 natural attractionsMost Popular State Parks in Arizona
30 state parksMost Popular Museums in Arizona
101 museumsMost Popular Historical Attractions in Arizona
180 historical attractions
What this site is
Most "things to do in Arizona" lists are opinions in ranked clothing. This one is a database first. Every attraction is a record with a category, a location resolved from coordinates, the designations it actually holds, and — where an agency publishes one — an official annual visitor count with its source and year attached.
Where a number does not exist, this site says so rather than estimating one. 679 of the 727 attractions here publish no visitor count, and their pages say that plainly instead of filling the gap.
What "most read about in August" means
It means what it says: these are the places whose Wikipedia articles are read most in August, measured across three full years and compared against their own yearly average. It is not a claim about when to visit. Nobody publishes month-by-month visitor counts for most of these places, so this site does not pretend to know — a place people read about in January because it snows there is not necessarily a place to go in January.
A single unusual month does not qualify. The figure is a median across years, and the peak has to land in the same part of the calendar in at least two of them, so a wildfire or a film release cannot manufacture a season. The methodology page sets out the thresholds.
How the ranking works
Three measurements are kept separate, because they answer different questions: visitation (how many people are recorded visiting), popularity (how much public interest a place attracts), and significance (how important it is as a destination, derived from its official designations). They combine into one score, weighted so that public interest alone cannot carry a place to the top.
That last point is deliberate. A large shopping centre can genuinely attract more public attention than a botanical garden, and it is not what anyone means by an Arizona attraction. The methodology page shows the weighting, the sources and the limitations in full.