Arizona State Parks & Trails
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arizona State Parks & Trails is the state agency responsible for managing Arizona state parks and historic sites. The agency oversees 33 parks encompassing more than 64,000 acres and receives more than 3 million visitors annually.[1][2]
- Bob Broscheid, Director
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1957 |
| Jurisdiction | State of Arizona |
| Headquarters | Phoenix, Arizona |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent department | Arizona Department of Administration |
| Website | azstateparks |
History
The agency was established in 1957. Its creation reflected the statewide expansion of outdoor recreation and tourism during the decades following World War II.[3] Scholarly work describes how Arizona’s relatively late creation of a state park system influenced its early reliance on interagency partnerships and shared management arrangements.[4]
In 2017, the National Recreation and Park Association awarded Arizona State Parks & Trails its Gold Medal Award for the best-managed state park system in the United States.[5]
The agency was known as Arizona State Parks from its founding until March 2017.[6]
Holdings
The agency manages 33 state parks encompassing more than 64,000 acres statewide[1] and receives more than 3 million visitors annually.[2] Volunteers contributed more than 178,000 service hours statewide in fiscal year 2024.[2]
The system includes:
- 23 recreation parks — 15 with camping and 8 day-use only
- 8 historic parks
- 1 memorial state park
- 1 state natural area
Regional media have profiled the system’s wide range of landscapes and recreation opportunities.[7]
Representative landscapes within the state park system
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