Most Visited U.S. Monuments

Travel+Leisure

With one quick visit to Washington, D.C. you can see several of America’s most-visited national monuments, according to . And while many are on the East Coast, the top 10 are littered throughout the country.

Americans sure show their patriotism when it comes to these visits. Based on 2011 visited statistics the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. topped the list. However, the White House was all the way down at number 20 with 570,000 visitors last year.

And although the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City was down at number 13, the monument had racked up more than a million visitors despite only opening in September, giving it just four months to compete.

Here are the top 10 most visited monuments in America.

10. Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.

1,945,696

Annual Visitors:Just the first of six monuments to make the top 10, this memorial with its 19-foot-tall statue of Jefferson was laid out by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The statue was added to the rotunda four years after it had been finished.

2,081,722

9. Mount Rushmore, Keystone, S.D.Annual Visitors:

North by Northwest

It took 400 workers over 14 years to complete the massive visages of Presidents George Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The monument has frequently been seen in pop culture, in movies such as , as have parodies of the monument, which often include a fifth face or other alterations.

2,259,017

8. Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Mo.Annual Visitors:

Dred Scott

Jefferson gets a third nod in a row on this list. This park contains the famous Gateway Arch of St. Louis. The park was established to commemorate American expansion westward as well as the debate over slavery raised by the case.

2,309,708

7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.Annual Visitors:

As FDR had dedicated a monument to Jefferson, President Bill Clinton did the same for FDR. The memorial is accessible to those with various physical impairments, although the statue of the president does not show him in a wheelchair, but in a chair covered by his cloak — as he often appeared in public.

This is not the only memorial to FDR in Washington, D.C. There is also a much smaller memorial in the form of a cement block on Pennsylvania Ave.

6. Korean War Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.Annual Visitors: 3,073,430

Just south of the most visited monument, it was dedicated by Clinton and Kim Young Sam, president of South Korea. The memorial includes 19 larger-than-life statutes of infantrymen and the names of all those dead, wounded, captured and missing from the U.S and the United Nations.

3,572,769

5. Independence National Historical Park, PhiladelphiaAnnual Visitors:

It certainly earns its nickname of “America’s most historic square mile.” The park consists of several sites associated with the nation’s history, including Independence Hall (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the Liberty Bell. As the location of where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted, the area was also the temporary capital city of the U.S.

4. Statue of Liberty, New York/New JerseyAnnual Visitors: 3,749,982

The islands are a territory of New York despite the fact that the rest on the New Jersey side of the state line. Although entrance to the monument is free, visitors still need to pay for a ferry ticket regardless of whether they’re coming from Manhattan or Jersey City. A designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, the statue is 305 feet tall from the ground up to the tip of the torch. Unfortunately, visitors cannot enter the 125-year-old statue right now as it is being renovated.

If visitors can’t make the trip, there are hundreds of replicas of the statue, including in front of the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. and six different ones in Paris, France.

3. World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C.Annual Visitors: 3,752,172

The newest monument in the top 10, it opened in 2004. It sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument on the National Mall. The memorials 56 granite pillars are each inscribed with the name of one of the 48 states in 1945, plus the District of Columbia, the Alaska Territory, the Territory of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

4,020,127

Just adjacent to the National Mall, this memorial has three parts. The names of servicemen who were killed or missing as of 1982 are listed in chronological order on the Memorial Wall. In the statute of The Three Soldiers, the men depicted are purposely identified as White American, African American and Hispanic American. The Woman’s Memorial is dedicated to the women who served, mostly as nurses.

2. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.Annual Visitors:

5,971,220

1. Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.Annual Visitors:

Located at the end of the National Mall, across from the Washington Monument is one of several memorials dedicated to America’s sixteenth president — and the second time he appears on the list. It was also the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. There is an inscription at the monument on the steps where King delivered his speech.

The names of the 50 states and the dates when they entered the Union ring the top of the building. The statue of Lincoln took four years to complete and is almost twice the size it was originally planned to be.