Visits to historic sites rising in U.S.

Updated findings show: 

• In 2017, 28% of American adults reported visiting a historic site in the previous year—an increase of 4.4 percentage points from 2012, and a reversal of a decades-long downward trend.

• Visitation rates have been converging among Americans of various ages, but college graduates remain substantially more likely to visit historic sites than those with lower levels of education.

• Since hitting a recent low in visits in 1995, total visits to historic sites managed by the National Park Service increased 58% to a high of 120.3 million in 2016, before falling 7%, to 111.9 million visits in 2018.

• As of 2017, approximately half of Americans with a bachelor’s degree had read a work of history in the past year, as compared to less than 35% of Americans with only a high school education.