Fact sheet · Midwest

Wind Cave National Park

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

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States on the system list: South Dakota

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

Anniversary-table date: January 9, 1903

Gross area acres: 33,970.84

NPS fee acres: 33,970.84. Report date September 30, 2026. Gross area is not the same column as fee ownership.

Boundary centroid: 43.5753, -103.4288

Containing shoreline polygon: South Dakota. 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: 596,199 (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	11,962	10,734	14,840	10
February	12,674	10,191	15,543	10
March	20,091	13,942	24,896	10
April	39,160	29,214	54,922	10
May	56,764	36,878	77,241	10
June	101,538	55,498	125,106	10
July	122,561	89,098	154,509	10
August	101,258	79,172	128,984	10
September	75,278	55,196	89,468	10
October	28,346	23,537	31,722	10
November	14,266	10,950	16,374	10
December	12,300	11,010	14,331	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.

Badlands National Park — about 55 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park — about 234 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.
Rocky Mountain National Park — about 251 straight-line miles between boundary centroids.