Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a conservation unit of the National Park Service covering 1,254,429 acres of rugged high desert around Lake Powell and lower Cataract Canyon, in Utah and Arizona. It is named for Glen Canyon, which was flooded when Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1966 and now lies mostly submerged beneath the reservoir. The recreation area borders Capitol Reef and Canyonlands national parks to the north, Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument to the west, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument and the north-easternmost reaches of Grand Canyon National Park to the south-west, and the Navajo Nation to the south-east. Its published visitor figure counts the whole recreation area across both states rather than any single site within it. It recorded 4,725,610 recreation visits in 2024, counted across the whole recreation area.

Where it is

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a national recreation area near Page, in Coconino County. It is one of the national recreation areas in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

The score combines the published visitor count with public interest and tourism significance, which is what earns it medium confidence. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Mentioned in

• Arizona has three national parks, and one of them takes 77 per cent of the visits — Grand Canyon recorded 4,919,163 visits in 2024 against 1,505,623 for Saguaro and Petrified Forest combined — more than three times the other two together.

Sources

• Visitation: National Park Service Visitor Use Statistics(opens in a new tab)
• Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
• Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
• County: Arizona-side association; the unit spans Arizona and Utah
• Official site: https://www.nps.gov/glca/index.htm(opens in a new tab)

Record last verified 2026-08-12.