Fact sheet · Southwest

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Unit code CAVE. Figures retrieved 2026-11-06. Official alerts, fees, and closures are not copied here.

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States on the system list: New Mexico

Guide region: Southwest. Editorial grouping of the state that contains the centroid, or the first listed state when the point is offshore.

Anniversary-table date: October 25, 1923

Table note: redesignated from Carlsbad Cave National Monument in 1930

Gross area acres: 46,766.45

NPS fee acres: 46,427.26. Report date September 30, 2026. Gross area is not the same column as fee ownership.

Boundary centroid: 32.1201, -104.6013

Containing shoreline polygon: New Mexico. Not an entrance.

Recreation-visit record: Highest monthly mean is in June, July, or August

Highest mean: July. Lowest mean: January. Mean annual total across complete years: 408,279 (10 complete years).

The monthly record

Mean of reported recreation visits by calendar month, 2016–2025. Gold is the lowest mean and rust is the highest. A missing bar was not reported. This is a historic average, not a live crowd count.

Monthly recreation-visit record
Month	Mean	Lowest year	Highest year	Years in the mean
January	17,261	3,093	23,733	10
February	19,366	13,046	22,343	10
March	50,506	28,925	67,429	10
April	33,105	1,138	50,142	10
May	34,953	1,338	53,960	10
June	47,693	10,124	63,091	10
July	59,218	18,855	89,963	10
August	33,478	17,002	43,799	10
September	27,296	16,717	33,676	10
October	30,311	0	44,238	10
November	27,088	9,265	38,440	10
December	28,003	8,945	40,385	10

How to use this fact sheet

This is a fact sheet. Every figure is tied to the sources under it. It is not a trail guide, a fee table, or a conditions report.

Official pages

These links were checked when the site was built. A working link is not a live feed. If a standard address did not respond, it is omitted.

Nearest other national parks

Distances are great-circle miles between boundary centroids. They are not road distances or travel times.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park — about 23 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.
White Sands National Park — about 110 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.
Big Bend National Park — about 210 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.