Fairview School Building · Photo: Valis55 · CC BY-SA 3.030% of Bull Shoals’ land is conserved: 965 acres
4% of residents live within a half mile of a park. 2.2 miles of mapped trail cross Bull Shoals, 0.4 per square mile of land.
Ahead of 36% of U.S. towns. What drives it
What kind of outdoors town is Bull Shoals?
Read from the map. The page puts what stands out first.
How much outdoors does Bull Shoals have?
On conserved land, trails, park land and how close residents live to a park, Bull Shoals is ahead of 36% of U.S. towns. Conserved land holds the grade up; park acres per resident pull it down.
Few Arkansas towns conserve much land (a typical one, 1%; the U.S., 4%), so Bull Shoals’ 30% is ahead of 100% of Arkansas towns, while its trails per square mile lead 79% of them.
PAD-US, OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors), Census 2025 Gazetteer and 2020 blocks; details in Sources below. How TownRatings grades the outdoors →
Conserved land, trails & bike routes
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it.
965 conserved acres
30% of Bull Shoals’ land. Who manages Bull Shoals’s conserved land, from the USGS Protected Areas Database. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
| Parcel (PAD-US) | Managed by | Acres | Public access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bull Shoals Recreation Area Recreation Management Area | Army Corps of Engineers | 965 | Open |
| Bull Shoals White River State Park State Park | State parks | 88 | Open |
1 places to go in Bull Shoals
Beaches, playgrounds, peaks, falls and more. Pick a kind.
3 places on the National Register
The country’s official list of places worth saving (National Park Service).
June is the best month for walking in Bull Shoals
NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals for the town and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have long days, highs of 59 to 86 °F and little rain for the place.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 9.9 | 10.8 | 11.9 | 13.1 | 14.1 | 14.6 | 14.4 | 13.5 | 12.4 | 11.2 | 10.2 | 9.7 |
| High (°F) | 47 | 52 | 61 | 71 | 78 | 86 | 90 | 90 | 83 | 72 | 60 | 49 |
| Rain (in) | 2.9 | 2.9 | 4.4 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 3.6 | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 4.3 | 3.4 |
February is the driest month (2.9 in) and July the warmest (highs of 90 °F). 5.3 inches fall in May, the wettest month. Summer highs reach 90 °F, too hot for the outline. The climate in Bull Shoals →
Questions about parks and trails in Bull Shoals
How much of Bull Shoals is conserved land?
30% of its land, against a typical 1% for an Arkansas town and 4% nationally (PAD-US). Conserved doesn’t always mean open to visitors: easements are usually private land.
Is there public land near Bull Shoals?
23,552 acres of parks and open public land lie inside Bull Shoals or within 10 miles of it (PAD-US), 918 of them inside the city line.
How much outdoors does Bull Shoals have?
Ahead of 36% of U.S. towns on the Outdoors grade. The grade combines the share of land that is conserved, miles of mapped trail per square mile of land, park acres per 1,000 residents and the share of residents within a half mile of a park. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
Trail talk
Conditions, parking and favorite walks from Bull Shoals neighbors.
Where this page comes from
Conserved and public land: USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US), service updated July 2026. Parks, trails, playgrounds, beaches and other places: OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), map data as of 2026-10-28. Land and water area: Census 2025 Gazetteer. Residents near a park: 2020 Census blocks. National Register: National Park Service. How TownRatings grades the outdoors →