Halifax Citadel National Historic Site Visitor Statistics (2025-26)

• The Halifax Citadel National Historic Site recorded 1,088,705 visitors in the fiscal year ending in March 2026, the first time on Parks Canada's records that it passed one million.²
• It was the third-busiest national historic site in Canada that year, among those reporting a figure, and the busiest Parks Canada place in Nova Scotia.²

The Halifax Citadel is by far the most visited Parks Canada place in Nova Scotia. Its 1,088,705 visitors in 2025-26 were more than the other 12 Parks Canada places in the province drew combined (739,823), making up 59.5% of all visits to Parks Canada places in Nova Scotia.²

The next busiest was Cape Breton Highlands National Park, with 296,647 visitors.² The Fortress of Louisbourg, the province's other major fortress site, drew 110,148, about a tenth of the Citadel's total.

The Halifax Citadel was the 3rd most visited national historic site in Canada in 2025-26 among sites reporting a figure, behind the Fortifications of Québec (2,224,062) and the Lachine Canal (1,492,668), and ahead of the Rideau Canal (888,454).²

Counting national parks as well, it was the 7th most visited Parks Canada place in the country that year, again among those reporting a figure. The Trent-Severn Waterway, which drew more than 1.25 million visitors a year⁴ in the last years it reported (2019-20 to 2021-22)⁸, had no 2025-26 figure.²

All Parks Canada visitor figures on this page are official attendance counts, which Parks Canada publishes as open data on the Government of Canada's Open Government Portal.

• Reporting period: Parks Canada reports attendance by fiscal year, which runs from April to March. "2025-26" means April 2025 to March 2026.
• Latest release: the 2025-26 attendance figures were published on June 4, 2026.¹⁰
• Earlier years: each year's figure comes from that year's own Parks Canada release, listed in the references below.
• Percentage changes: the year-on-year and pre-pandemic comparisons on this page are calculated from those official figures.
• Camping figures: camper numbers for Porters Lake and Laurie provincial parks come from Nova Scotia's camping reservation data, published by the province's Department of Natural Resources for 2011 to 2024.¹¹

Most exhibits and attractions are open from May 7 to October 31, and Parks Canada suggests planning at least two hours.¹³ These are the highlights:

• The Noon Gun, a reproduction 1809 12-pounder fired every day at noon, a long-standing Citadel tradition.¹³
• Living history: re-enactors take you back to 1869, when the 78th Highland Regiment was stationed in Halifax, with drills and pipes and drums.¹⁴
• A guided walking tour, included in the admission price and a good way to begin your visit.¹⁴
• The Army Museum, which covers Nova Scotia's military past from the First World War to the present.¹³
• Fortress Halifax: A City Shaped by Conflict, which tells the city's story through the four forts that have stood on Citadel Hill.¹³
• The viewing platforms, overlooking the naval dockyard the Citadel was built to protect and ground zero of the 1917 Halifax Explosion.¹³
• Tunnels and the dry ditch: walk through a sally port into the defensive ditch that surrounds the fort, or explore the dark Musketry Gallery.¹³
• Period rooms such as the barracks, the guard room cells and the tailor shop, where you can try on a uniform coat.¹³
• Ghost tours: 70-minute candlelit tours of the fort at night, with public dates from July to October.¹²