Washington, DC’s parks include District recreation facilities, federally managed landscapes, neighborhood spaces, aquatic gardens, trails, and nationally recognized memorial grounds. The available measures show more than 850 acres of green space in the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) inventory, 1,754 acres in Rock Creek Park, and approximately 25 million annual visits to National Mall and Memorial Parks. The figures below keep agency scopes and measurement periods separate.
Table of contents
- District parkland and facilities
- Aquatic facilities and recreation centers
- Community programs, camps, and meals
- Permits, events, partners, and volunteers
- Federal parks and their scale
- Visitation and access measures
District parkland and facilities
DPR’s current inventory describes more than 850 acres of green space in the District. It includes 243 neighborhood parks, 68 recreation and community centers, 35 pools and aquatic centers, and 36 spray parks. The same inventory lists 122 outdoor basketball courts, 138 tennis courts, and 110 athletic and ball fields. These counts are current on the Partnerships and Development Division page, accessed in 2026: Department of Parks and Recreation Partnerships and Development Division.
The approved FY2026 budget presents a different DPR inventory scope. It describes approximately 900 acres of parkland, 70 active recreation and community centers, and more than 50 aquatic facilities. Those numbers should not be added to the webpage inventory or treated as a revision of each individual count. The budget’s broader or differently defined categories explain why it is useful to report the two views separately: Department of Parks and Recreation FY 2026 Approved Budget and Financial Plan.
| DPR inventory measure | Current webpage | FY2026 approved budget |
|---|---|---|
| Parkland or green space | More than 850 acres | Approximately 900 acres |
| Recreation/community centers | 68 | 70 active centers |
| Aquatic facilities | 35 pools and aquatic centers | More than 50 aquatic facilities |
The comparison is descriptive rather than cumulative. The source notes that the DPR webpage and FY2026 budget use different inventory scopes, so the figures do not establish a single combined acreage or facility total.
Aquatic facilities and recreation centers
DPR’s FY2021–FY2022 performance measures show a substantial difference in recorded use between the two fiscal years. Aquatic facilities recorded 141,553 visitors in FY2021 and 264,108 in FY2022. They provided 152 programs in FY2021 and 564 in FY2022. The aquatic-facility program enrollment rate was 88.8% in FY2021 and 81.2% in FY2022.
Aquatic learning measures also changed across the period. DPR recorded 86 youth learning to swim in FY2021 and 1,786 in FY2022. It trained 179 lifeguards in FY2021 and 406 in FY2022. These are fiscal-year workload measures, not current annual forecasts or a measure of every swim participant in the District.
Recreation-center activity was recorded at 67,076 visitors in FY2021 and 758,979 in FY2022. The centers provided 806 programs in FY2021 and 1,166 in FY2022. DPR logged 3,562 hours of community engagement in FY2021 and 10,232 in FY2022. The community-recreation program enrollment rate was 67.1% in FY2021 and 81.6% in FY2022.
The measures come from the Department of Parks and Recreation Performance Accountability Report. Because the report compares two fiscal years, the figures describe reported agency activity during FY2021 and FY2022 rather than a timeless level of park use.
Community programs, camps, and meals
DPR reported 38 nights with late-night operating hours in FY2022 and delivered 30 FitDC3 programs. It also delivered 14 Summer Plus camps and enrolled 1,648 students in those camps. Together, these figures describe program availability and enrollment for that fiscal year; they are not an estimate of all youth or residents who used DC parks.
Nutrition programming served 309,677 meals in FY2021 and 243,783 meals in FY2022. The meal counts are service totals, not a count of unique people. They also should not be interpreted as a measure of food insecurity or total meals served through every District program.
Community gardening activity expanded in the same report’s measures. DPR held 34 community gardening classes in FY2021 and 46 in FY2022. Residents participating in those classes totaled 812 in FY2021 and 1,953 in FY2022. The community-gardening-class enrollment rate was 80.9% in FY2021 and 86.8% in FY2022. These statistics cover DPR community gardening classes specifically, rather than every garden, allotment, or volunteer activity in Washington, DC.
All FY2021–FY2022 programming and service figures in this section are reported in the DPR Performance Accountability Report.
Permits, events, partners, and volunteers
DPR received 77,728 permit applications in FY2021 and 46,297 in FY2022. It issued 74,200 permits in FY2021 and 38,537 in FY2022. These are application and issuance counts, not a direct count of visitors or booked hours.
Special-event activity moved in the opposite direction. DPR recorded 289 special events in FY2021 and 594 in FY2022, with 21,957 participants in FY2021 and 66,004 in FY2022. It served 283 external special events in FY2021 and 391 in FY2022. The report also records 27 events hosted at Eastern Market Metro Park in FY2022.
One FY2022 measure identifies 122 spaces activated in Ward 1 across Columbia Heights Plaza, 14th and Girard Park, and Unity Plaza. This is a reported activation count for the named spaces and year, not a count of all Ward 1 parks.
DPR reported 33 park partners in FY2021 and 34 in FY2022, while programmatic partners numbered 38 in FY2021 and 32 in FY2022. External resources totaled $3,525,323.91 in FY2021 and $4,257,513.10 in FY2022. Partners served 12,869 residents in FY2021 and 11,477 in FY2022.
Volunteer activity also has two fiscal-year measures: 347 volunteers and 4,919 volunteer hours in FY2021, compared with 1,919 volunteers and 17,045 hours in FY2022. The DPR Performance Accountability Report is the source for these permit, event, partnership, resource, resident-service, and volunteer figures.
Federal parks and their scale
District-managed recreation assets are only part of Washington’s park landscape. The National Park Service describes Rock Creek Park as a 1,754-acre city park in Washington, DC, with more than 32 miles of hiking trails and paths: Rock Creek Park. A separate NPS publication page says Rock Creek Park manages 99 sites, and approximately 40% of those sites are triangles, circles, squares, or traffic circles: Publications - Rock Creek Park.
Rock Creek Park also includes an 18-hole golf course occupying 103 acres, according to the NPS Golf - Rock Creek Park page. The golf-course acreage is part of the park’s described facilities and should not be added to the 1,754-acre park total.
National Mall and Memorial Parks manages approximately 1,000 acres in Washington, DC. The NPS also says the unit administers 60 statues along with its memorials, parks, and historic sites. Those measures come from Environmental Factors - National Mall and Memorial Parks and History & Culture - National Mall and Memorial Parks.
Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens encompasses 8.5 acres and has a network surrounding 45 ponds, according to the NPS Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens Cultural Landscape, whose page is identified as last updated in 2021. National Capital Parks-East manages more than 8,000 acres across Washington, DC and Maryland and includes 17 nationally significant parks: National Capital Parks-East. Because that unit crosses the DC–Maryland boundary, its acreage is not a Washington, DC-only total.
Visitation and access measures
National Mall and Memorial Parks reports approximately 25 million annual visits. This is an annual estimate stated on the current NPS environmental page accessed in 2026, not a FY2021 or FY2022 DPR attendance count. It also covers the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit, so it should not be combined with DPR aquatic or recreation-center visitors: Environmental Factors - National Mall and Memorial Parks.
Access information is available for Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens. The NPS accessibility page lists four accessible parking spaces beside the entrance path: Physical / Mobility - Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens. The connecting trail from the Anacostia River Trail to Kenilworth Park is 0.25 mile long, according to the NPS Directions - Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens.
These access figures describe a particular NPS site and route. They do not represent the number of accessible spaces, trail miles, or access conditions across all Washington, DC parks.