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 graded lakes.
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 graded lakes, 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 ↗ |