The 20 most Instagrammed national parks in the world

Hiker greets a new day at Yosemite
(Courtesy: National Park Svc)

CHARLOTTE, NC – If someone asked you to choose the most instagrammed national park on the internet which one would you pick? Here's a clue. The United States claims five of the twenty, four of the first five and all US parks are in the top nine.

If you said the Grand Canyon, you'd be dead on the mark. Yosemite is a little surprising at number two, while the Rocky Mountains take fourth position ahead of Yellowstone which might also be questioned by some observers.

The Grand Canyon is #1
(Courtesy: National Park Svc)

The only non-US national park sits in third place which is the Lake District in the United Kingdom.

Sequoia National Park in California is the straggler for the US with a ranking of 9th.

Four surprising omissions from the final list are Banff National Park and Jasper National Park in Canada, Alaska's Denali National Park and the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia.

Yosemite is second on the list
(Courtesy pixabay)

Of the remaining 11 parks, free admission is granted to four. Entrance fees vary from park to park but, in general, the cost for a visit ranges between $20 and $60 with the higher fees coming at wildlife sanctuaries or sites where climbing is involved.

Eleven countries are represented in the list with the UK boasting the second largest number of posts with four parks to its credit; the Lake District, the Peak District, Snowdonia and New Forest. The other country with more than one honoree is Tanzania thanks to the Serengeti and Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjo with a chance see the Big Five is a huge favorite
(Courtesy: Instagram -- volodymyr-burdiak)

When it comes to "Wonders of the World", four of the national parks are featured in the various lists.  Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and the Grand Canyon are two of the "Seven Natural Wonders of the World" (Aurora Borealis, Great Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, Niagara Falls and Rio de Janeiro round out that group).

Elephants the Great Migration
(Courtesy: pixabay}

The great migration of the Serengeti was named by USA Today as one of the "New Seven Wonders" and finally, Komodo Island in Indonesia was named in the "New Seven Wonders of Nature."

 The research was conducted by Faraway Furniture Co. In order to determine which famous National Park around the world is the most popular on Instagram, Faraway used the number of times each park had been hashtagged and then looked at the #s that contained the name of the park on its own, with ‘"Park" and with "National Park" to obtain the results. 

Instagram was the brainchild of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger who launched the photo and video-sharing social media networking service in October 2010. It became an overnight success with a million registered users signed on in just two months. Within a year it was up to 10 million users and, as of May 2019, a billion people had registered.

Los Glaciares in Argentina
(Courtesy: Instagram -- Henner-damke)

Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations and view trending content. They can also "like" photos and follow other users to add their content to a feed.

As with any trivia related list, there is always a bit of controversy, just as there was with the four parks listed above that were overlooked. Then again, that's part of the fun.

Victoria is stunning to see in Zimbabwe
(Courtesy: Instagram --dietmar-temps)

We will return soon with a brand new list to consider and debate. Until then here are Top Twenty Most Instagrammed National Parks:

Grand Canyon (US)

Yosemite (US)

Lake District (UK)

Rocky Mountains (US)

Yellowstone (US)

Peak District (UK)

Kruger  (South Africa)

Galapagos (Ecuador)

Sequoia (US)

Snowdonia (UK)

New Forest (UK)

Komodo (Indonesia)

Serengeti (Tanzania)

Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)

Guilin and Lijiang River (China)

Uluru (Australia)

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)

Fjordland (New Zealand)

Swiss (Switzerland)

Los Glaciares (Argentina)