Stanley Park is Not Largest Urban Park in North America
I have talked to many people who say and read many websites that claim Stanley Park is the largest urban park in North America. This is false, and I will prove it.
Below is a list of urban parks in North America larger than 1000 acres (the size of Stanley Park) that others have sent to me.
- South Mountain Preserve (Phoenix AZ) – 16,283
- Rouge Valley Park (Markham ON) – 11,600
- Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge (New York City NY) 9,155
- Fairmount Park (Philadelphia PA) – 8,900
- Forest Park (Portland OR) – 5,090
- Mission Bay Park (San Diego CA) – 4,235
- Griffith Park (Los Angeles CA) – 4,107
- Nose Hill Park (Calgary AB) – 2,785 acres
- Wascana Centre (Regina SK) – 2,325
- Rockwood Park (Saint John, NB) – 2,200 acres
- Chapultepec Park (Mexico City) – 2,100
- Oldman River parks system (Lethbridge AB) – 1,865
- Rock Creek Park (Washington, DC) 1,754
- City Park (New Orleans LA) – 1,500
- Presidio (San Francisco CA) 1,480
- Canyon Lakes Project (Lubbock TX) – 1,450
- Wilderness Park in (Lincoln NE) – 1,450 acres
- Forest Park (St. Louis MO) – 1,370
- Bays Mountain Park (Kingsport TN) – 1,300
- Lincoln Park (Chicago IL) 1,208
- Great Kills (New York City NY) – 1,200
- Balboa Park (San Diego CA) 1,158
- Van Cortlandt Park (New York City NY) 1,146
- Golden Gate Park (San Francisco CA) 1,013
- Stanley Park (Vancouver BC) – 1,000
As you can see, not only is Stanley Park not the largest park in North America, it isn’t even the largest urban park in Canada. In fact, it isn’t even the largest urban park in western Canada.
BCers can, however, rest assured knowing that Stanley Park may be the largest urban park in British Columbia.
Amazing how people love to spread falsehoods without verifying their accuracy.
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Add Wilderness Park in Lincoln, Nebraska. Approximately 1, 450 acres.
22 May 2005 @ 08:40 | Permalink
Dude. There’s a difference between “State”, “Provincial”, “National” and “Urban” parks. Urban parks are funded by members of the community and maintained by the municipality. A State or Provincial park can be ridiculously enormous because those governments can spend large sums of money.
1 Sep 2005 @ 01:11 | Permalink
Hey, thanks for this list. Memorial Park in Houston, Tex. has 1466 acres. I haven’t seen Stanley Park or Vancouver yet, but plan to! (Just moved to Seattle, so exploration looms!)
16 Nov 2005 @ 20:55 | Permalink
Those are municipal parks. An urban park is a park in an urban area. Municipal parks can be in both urban and rural communities.
1 Sep 2005 @ 05:51 | Permalink
Stanley Park may not be the largest urban park in North America but it is the second largest naturally forested urban park in North America, and I think the most beautiful.
17 Sep 2005 @ 11:37 | Permalink
Rockwood Park, an urban park located within the city limits of Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada), is 2200 acres in size. Website claims largest in Canada.
19 Jan 2006 @ 13:28 | Permalink
Nose Hill park in the northwest of Calgary is close to 2800 acres and is completely surrounded by urban areas.
31 Jan 2006 @ 23:22 | Permalink
“Amazing how people love to spread falsehoods without verifying their accuracy.”
Amazing how some people like to inform BCers how wrong we are :)
21 May 2006 @ 18:52 | Permalink
I’m not prejudicial. I tell people from all sorts of places how wrong they are.
21 May 2006 @ 19:01 | Permalink
If you call second growth after clear cutting and burning naturally forested, Mike.
18 Sep 2005 @ 15:18 | Permalink
I Have to disagree with your findings. Edmonton Alberta has the Largest Urban park in North America. “The Edmonton River Valley” 111 Square Kilometers or 27,428.7 Acres
28 Sep 2006 @ 15:32 | Permalink
Is it an official park?
The Oldman River valley in Lethbridge is larger than Stanley Park as well, but it is a series of parks, not just one park.
28 Sep 2006 @ 17:16 | Permalink
You’re Correct. It does consist of several parks together. Therefore would not be thought of as a single park. My bad.
2 Oct 2006 @ 12:42 | Permalink
Please, we do need to set up some criteria here. Urban parks, by whomever invented this name, probably mean those parks that are steps away from the city downtown core. Therefore Stanley Park is clearly one of the biggest, if not THE biggest. South Mountain Preserve? Give me a break. You probably need to drive through some really boring suburbs to reach that. Can we call it urban park? Of cours no!
20 Oct 2006 @ 23:08 | Permalink
The thing is, however, that definition makes no sense. Why restrict an urban park to just near the downtown? And if you want to get technical, Stanley Park is hardly “steps” away from Vancouver’s downtown (well depending on whether you consider the West End or the entire peninsula to be part of downtown). Regina’s Wascana Park is much closer, for example, and even borders on downtown.
That being said, I see no reason why urban parks cannot be any park within a urban municipality’s boundaries and administered by the municipality.
21 Oct 2006 @ 07:08 | Permalink
Edmonton’s huge urban park cuts right through the city so it sits next to many, many neighbourhoods – plus it’s next to downtown.
28 Oct 2006 @ 06:37 | Permalink
My understanding is that it is not one huge park but rather a huge collection of several parks (see comments 11–13).
28 Oct 2006 @ 18:47 | Permalink
Newport News Park in Virginia is 8,065 acres.
http://www.nnparks.com/parks.php
6 Nov 2006 @ 08:05 | Permalink
Interesting. Is there a list of the biggest urban parks in order?? I can’t find one….
29 Nov 2006 @ 11:55 | Permalink
The list I made is in order of size.
29 Nov 2006 @ 12:17 | Permalink
OK, I see that now, I was looking at some other lists that confused me. Sorry. But look at this:
http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=20531&folder_id=3208
29 Nov 2006 @ 12:21 | Permalink
Thanks for that link. Too bad there isn’t something similar for all of North America.
29 Nov 2006 @ 12:24 | Permalink
Firstly, to assuage Vancouverites, Stanley Park is a stunningly beautiful park, one of the world’s best. Of course, it isn’t the worlds largest, but what is? What is the definition of an urban park? Entirely enclosed within the city limits? I’d like to submit two parks to the list. Both entirely within the city limits of Calgary. Nose Hill Park – 2785 acres. Fish Creek Park – 3380 acres.
29 Nov 2006 @ 13:58 | Permalink
Fish Creek is a provincial park. I added Nose Hill to the list.
29 Nov 2006 @ 14:02 | Permalink
How are determining urban from suburban? ‘Cause in it’s entirety, isn’t Oldman River Parks system more sub than Urb?
30 Mar 2007 @ 19:32 | Permalink
In any sense of the word, The Old Man River parks system is urban. It’s is not only within the city boundaries, but goes right through the middle of those boundaries, surrounded on both sides by development.
30 Mar 2007 @ 19:43 | Permalink
I didn’t realize that the entire system was urban; thanx!
Heey where does Beacon Hill Park sit on the list?
30 Mar 2007 @ 19:53 | Permalink
Oops, I forgot to ask, do you know which is the oldest urban park in Canada? How ’bout N.A.?
30 Mar 2007 @ 19:54 | Permalink
I don’t know.
No. No.
30 Mar 2007 @ 20:12 | Permalink
Wow, I am surprised that this question is still being debated. You Canadians do have a boat load of free time.
30 Mar 2007 @ 21:41 | Permalink
Canadians are not the only commenters on this thread.
30 Mar 2007 @ 21:46 | Permalink
Free time? What’s that?
31 Mar 2007 @ 06:27 | Permalink
Time you don’t have to pay for. You’ve heard the expression stealing (stolen) time?! Well if stealing makes you guilty, and getting something for free is pleasurable (except for STD’s), then free time is when you indulge in guilty pleasures!
31 Mar 2007 @ 10:20 | Permalink
Kim, I have to go to bat for Fish Creek Park again. Yes, it is a provincial park, but it is entirely surrounded by city, therefore, urban. Furthermore, the Alberta government itself, refers to the park as urban.
http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/enjoying_alberta/parks/featured/fishcreek/welcome.asp
30 Apr 2007 @ 13:02 | Permalink
Not quibbling about size, just name: It’s Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, NY, named for original Dutch settlers. The “Van” is integral to the name — you wouldn’t drop the O in O’Malley, would you?
9 May 2007 @ 06:06 | Permalink
Thanks, David. I just add what I am given.
9 May 2007 @ 07:41 | Permalink
Fish Creek Park is only in Calgary because Calgary is forever increasing it’s boundaries. When I was a kid, Fish Creek park was way way way out, and even now one can hardly call it an “urban” park.
Nose Hill park is similar. It too used to be way way out, it just got included in the boundaries a little sooner than Fish Creek. I love both these parks, but living in Vancouver now, I have to say neither is within walking distance of the downtown core the way Stanley Park is.
Since you are including those two, you have to also include the UBC Endowment Lands, now called Pacific Spirit Park, which is totally surrounded by residential and commercial areas of Vancouver and goes right through parts of the University of BC. That is about 1680 acres, or 7.0 km sq.
15 Jun 2007 @ 09:42 | Permalink
How can it be “totally surrounded” by residential and commercial areas of Vancouver when it butts with the Fraser River, the Strait of Georgia and Burrard Inlet?
15 Jun 2007 @ 09:49 | Permalink
According to Wikipedia, an urban park is maintained by a municipal government. Hence, I am removing all parks administered provincially (by state in the USA) and federally from my list.
Please let me know if I missed any.
15 Jun 2007 @ 09:51 | Permalink
Stanley Park is also surrounded by water on three sides. Better take that one off the list too.
16 Jun 2007 @ 16:11 | Permalink
What does that have to do with anything?
16 Jun 2007 @ 16:27 | Permalink
shelby farms is one of the largest urban parks in the US. it is 4500 acres, over 3 times bigger the central park in new york city.
18 Jul 2007 @ 12:54 | Permalink
This definitely wouldn’t fit on the list, as it is owned by the state, not municipally, but just as an interesting piece of information, the Franklin Mountains State Park in El Paso, Texas, is over 24,000 acres, and is entirely within the city limits.
Now, I’ve seen websites that claim that Stanley park is the biggest city-owned park in Canada, but only the third in North America, behind the Golden Gate Park in San Fransisco and the Chapultepec Park in Mexico City. Do you think maybe they’re using a different definition of “city-owned?” It doesn’t seem like just a simple issue of local pride if they allow two others in front of them, but it still doesn’t match up with the list…
15 Aug 2007 @ 15:16 | Permalink
Regina’s Wascana Park is a city-owned Park and is bigger than Stanley Park. Same goes for the Oldman river park in Lethbridge.
15 Aug 2007 @ 15:23 | Permalink
I know, that’s what I was wondering… It didn’t seem to make any sense. And I’ve been to both of those other ones you mentioned, and know from experience that they’re bigger. Maybe it’s that Chapultepec and the Golden Gate Park were the only other ones they knew of that were claiming the same thing, and so they were obliged to include them, and then they could forget about everyone else. If that’s the case, it shows something about people from Vancouver. Although I don’t think that’s really what happened.
15 Aug 2007 @ 17:48 | Permalink
[...] Here is another blog’s post on the same topic (albeit with some inaccurate numbers). Here is a list of the 100 largest parks in the United States. (Go Anchorage!) [...]
22 Aug 2007 @ 14:41 | Permalink
Lets be clear here. Wascana Park is only 44 acres. Wascana Centre, however, is 9.3 km2. It must be noted, however, that by your definition of a urban park (comment 39), Wascana Centre does not count either. Wascana Centre is administered and funded by the City of Regina, the Province of Saskatchewan and the University of Saskatchewan, thus it does not qualify (See here: http://www.wascana.sk.ca/documents/WascanaAnnualReport2005-06FINAL.pdf)
22 Aug 2007 @ 15:01 | Permalink
Actually, comment 39 says an urban park is maintained by a municipal government, not administered and funded by one. In addition, technically, the centre is administered by The Wascana Centre Authority. Granted, that authority is made up of representatives of those three bodies.
We should also remember that Wascana Centre is a collection of parks. I will edit the post to reflect the entire collection rather than just the one.
23 Aug 2007 @ 20:38 | Permalink
Maintenance only happens through administration and funding. There is not one without the other.
As my link shows the park is only 25% funded by the City of Regina, thus by extension the park is only 25% maintained by the City of Regina. The link also shows that the Centre was created by an act of the legislature. Surely that disqualifies it if it is “maintained” by the Wascana Centre Authority which is not a municipal goverment.
23 Aug 2007 @ 22:45 | Permalink
was curious about this subject myself and stumbled across this thread?… read all your good points, and thought.. how bout “parks that are ‘only’ accessable through urban areas?… any other park can just keep getting bigger and doesnt really have a defined area?.. and this leaves Stanley Park in the mix! :)
3 Oct 2007 @ 01:47 | Permalink
You have a point there. Maybe Stanley Park is “the largest park that will never grow and is surrounded by urban area”. I guess it might be something to be proud of.
3 Oct 2007 @ 07:29 | Permalink
Stanley Park isn’t very big. But Vancouver has an impressive 11% of its total area devoted to parks, the most in Canada. That’s something much better to be proud of Vancouverites. You can’t compete on size with sprawling cities with land to waste like Edmonton or Ottawa. Do you know how big Ottawa’s total area is now that it merged with the surrounding county? It’s not a fair fight.
26 Jun 2008 @ 19:22 | Permalink
Actually, Lethbridge has dedicated 16% of its land to parkland, so Vancouver doesn’t come in first there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethbridge#Sports_and_recreation
27 Jun 2008 @ 06:28 | Permalink
Wikipedia is where I read that Stanley Park was the 3rd biggest city owned park in North America. I live here and I have never heard
anyone talk about this (or “spread rumours”) like you’re saying. It’s right downtown, you can literally walk from an office tower to it
within 15 minutes and within 2 minutes of Denman st. Rush hour traffic sits through it
on the way to and from North Van.
It’s as urban as you can get, just like
Central Park and Golden Gate Park. I was just in San Francisco, and no one talked to me about Presidio Park (of which I don’t know anything about); only about how Golden Gate Park is bigger than Central Park etc.
And the guy was born and raised in SF, so it’s not like he wouldn’t know about it’s
(Presidio) existance. It seems to me that when they are talking about the biggest “urban” parks, thay are talking about the ones literally within blocks of
the downtown core or major urban area (which would incude ALL of Manhattan, as that little area alone is far more urban than Regina, Calgary or Edmonton will probably ever be).
I haven’t heard of most of those parks on your list; I doubt they are used nearly as much or by as many people as any of those like Central Park or Golden Gate Park etc.
or Golden Gate Park. These parks are used
25 Jul 2008 @ 17:02 | Permalink
Oh. I hadn’t heard you were the clearing agent for urbank park sizes. Sorry about that.
25 Jul 2008 @ 17:15 | Permalink
Edwin and Percy Warner Parks are twin adjacent parks in downtown Nashville which total 2684 acres.
14 Aug 2008 @ 14:44 | Permalink
Actually, I think, very few of the parks in your list are URBAN parks. However, I will agree with you that Stanley is not the largest URBAN park in NA or even Canada. As a tour guide, taking tourist through Stanley Park, I would proclaim it as the World’s largest URBAN park.
But it is very beautiful and you can’t really blame Vancouverites for claiming it is the largest. After all Yankees have been claiming the US of A is the biggest, best, greatest, country in the world for years, yet everyone knows it isn’t.
Is Stanley a natural park? Well, yes, as much as any park can be. What with the building of trails, scenic outlooks, etc. Natural in that the trees have not been planted by man. Yes, they were, at one time, logged off, but they regrew without replanting.
Someone noted that Stanley is city owned. It isn’t. The land is owned, like all land in Canada, by Ottawa, ie; Federal Gov’t. It is rented, by the city of Vancouver for $1.00 per year.
Also, for those of you who have visited Stanley, when you enter Stanley, along the SEAWALL, you don’t enter from the city. On the Notrh side you enter from Devonian Harbour Park and on the South from English Bay Park.
10 Oct 2008 @ 05:13 | Permalink
I have never seen someone get upset and be emotionally affected by false information about park sizes. Is this called Park envy?
4 Mar 2009 @ 10:17 | Permalink
Actually, Stanley Park isn’t even the largest urban park In Greater Vancouver. Pacific Spirit Regional Park near UBC at 1885 acres isn’t technically part of Vancouver (located on the University endowment lands) but it’s administered by the GVRD and it’s completely surrounded by urban areas or water (UBC, Vancouver, Richmond).
11 Mar 2009 @ 22:19 | Permalink
One more for your list
Irishtown Nature Park, Located in Moncton NB
2200 acres
Charles
Project coordinator
City of Moncton
20 Aug 2009 @ 18:59 | Permalink
Poor Forest Park getting overlooked in all of this. Well, I guess it was mentioned in the original list. Either way I am damn proud to be able to walk along city streets in NW Portland, head up a handful of blocks and be at one of many entrances to the HUGE, natural and beautiful Forest Park. I mean if you can get lost on one of the many trails of a park, that says something.
I was in Vancouver recently and experienced Stanley Park. Yeah it was nice, yeah it had some great views, but honestly it was too trimmed, too landscape/ front yard like. I wasn’t as impressed as maybe I should have been. But yeah its pretty big.
Now what about the smallest park in the world. Does Portland, Oregon still take the gold on that one with Mill Ends Park? It is all of 2 ft diameter with a total area of 452 square inches you know.
just curious. oh and I love Portland. =)
21 Aug 2009 @ 00:24 | Permalink
ummmm, is it just me or does kim really have some sort of contempt for vancouver? case in point, the pacific spirit park (ubc) park debate, where you contradict yourself blatantly. you said that it’s not surrounded by development, implying that it wouldn’t be considered an urban park. so by the same logic, stanley park would not be considered an urban park either. and for the record, pacific spirit park is most definately surrounded by urban uses (residential, some commercial, and ubc-institutional) along the majority of its perimeter. i never comment on these things, and i always hate how they devolve into “who’s is bigger” matches, but kim, your tone is just so ridiculously snooty and toxic. it’s taking me back to 3rd grade: “NO, my mom said it was NOT the biggest park, and YOU’RE WRONG, and I’M RIGHT and YOU STINK.” and so on and so forth. therefore i really don’t feel bad making this kind of comment. and i’m sure the response (if this even gets posted) will be an angry and sarcastic freak-out.
22 Nov 2009 @ 23:40 | Permalink
Only because the previous commenter said it was.
23 Nov 2009 @ 08:43 | Permalink
I was born and raised in Vancouver (59 years old today)and I have seen most of the parks on your list as I have been in 7 provinces and 48 states. I have never “bragged” about the size of Stanley Park – only its beauty. It is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful “urban park” in NA. That is something to brag about!
14 Jan 2010 @ 14:20 | Permalink