Minnesota State Parks
All 81 state-managed parks, recreation areas, and waysides in Minnesota, with the year each was established and links to the official state agency page and the closest lakes with water-quality readings.
There are 81 units in the Minnesota state park system documented in our dataset. The DNR operates a tiered designation system: State Parks are the developed-recreation flagships, State Recreation Areas focus more narrowly on activity-specific use, State Natural Areas protect specific ecological communities, and waysides mark scenic stops along highway corridors.
For LakeQuality readers, the practical use of this list is the parks-to-lakes mapping below: every state park has a set of nearby lakes with water-quality readings, and the cleanest of those is usually the one worth planning your visit around. The Minnesota DNR publishes per-park details — campground availability, access points, fee structure — at dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks. We link to the official page for each park where that information is best maintained.
State Parks (71)
State Recreation Areas (9)
| Park | County | Established | Official Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Bog State Recreation Area | — | 2006 | DNR ↗ |
| Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area | Crow Wing County | 1993 | — |
| Garden Island State Recreation Area | Lake of the Woods County | 1998 | DNR ↗ |
| Greenleaf Lake State Recreation Area | Meeker County | 2007 | DNR ↗ |
| Iron Range Off-Highway Vehicle State Recreation Area | St. Louis County | — | DNR ↗ |
| La Salle Lake State Recreation Area | Hubbard County | — | — |
| Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area | Scott County | — | — |
| Moose Lake State Recreation Area | Carlton County | — | — |
| Red River State Recreation Area | East Grand Forks | 1997 | — |
State Waysides (1)
| Park | County | Established | Official Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inspiration Peak State Wayside Park | Otter Tail County | — | DNR ↗ |