Stanley Park is not the largest urban park in North America

122 thoughts on “Stanley Park is not the largest urban park in North America”

1. Add Wilderness Park in Lincoln, Nebraska. Approximately 1, 450 acres.

2. 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.

3. 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!)

4. “Urban parks are funded by members of the community and maintained by the municipality.”

   Those are municipal parks. An urban park is a park in an urban area. Municipal parks can be in both urban and rural communities.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Nose Hill park in the northwest of Calgary is close to 2800 acres and is completely surrounded by urban areas.

8. “Amazing how people love to spread falsehoods without verifying their accuracy.”

   Amazing how some people like to inform BCers how wrong we are :)

9. I’m not prejudicial. I tell people from all sorts of places how wrong they are.

10. If you call second growth after clear cutting and burning naturally forested, Mike.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. You’re Correct. It does consist of several parks together. Therefore would not be thought of as a single park. My bad.

14. 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!

15. 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.

16. Edmonton’s huge urban park cuts right through the city so it sits next to many, many neighbourhoods – plus it’s next to downtown.

17. My understanding is that it is not one huge park but rather a huge collection of several parks (see comments 11–13).

18. Newport News Park in Virginia is 8,065 acres.

    http://www.nnparks.com/parks.php

19. Interesting. Is there a list of the biggest urban parks in order?? I can’t find one….

20. The list I made is in order of size.

21. 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

22. Thanks for that link. Too bad there isn’t something similar for all of North America.

23. 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.

24. Fish Creek is a provincial park. I added Nose Hill to the list.

25. How are determining urban from suburban? ‘Cause in it’s entirety, isn’t Oldman River Parks system more sub than Urb?

26. 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.

27. I didn’t realize that the entire system was urban; thanx!

    Heey where does Beacon Hill Park sit on the list?

28. Oops, I forgot to ask, do you know which is the oldest urban park in Canada? How ’bout N.A.?

29. I don’t know.

    No. No.

30. Wow, I am surprised that this question is still being debated. You Canadians do have a boat load of free time.

31. Canadians are not the only commenters on this thread.

32. Free time? What’s that?

33. 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!

34. 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

35. 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?

36. Thanks, David. I just add what I am given.

37. 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.

38. 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?

39. 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.

40. Stanley Park is also surrounded by water on three sides. Better take that one off the list too.

41. What does that have to do with anything?

42. 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.

43. 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…

44. Regina’s Wascana Park is a city-owned Park and is bigger than Stanley Park. Same goes for the Oldman river park in Lethbridge.

45. 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.

46. Pingback: de libertate » Putting the Rumor to Rest

47. 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)

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. 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! :)

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