National Archives by the Numbers

(as of October 11, 2023)

​Locations: 43 facilities in 17 states, plus the District of Columbia

Number of staff: 2,569

Size of permanent archival holdings:

• 13.5 billion pieces of paper
• More than 725,000 artifacts
• More than 450 million feet of film, or about 85,302 miles (enough to circle the earth almost 3.4 times)
• 41 million photographs
• 40 million aerial images
• 10 million maps, charts, and architectural/ engineering drawings
• More than 33 billion electronic records (837 terabytes) 

New archival holdings: In 2019*, the National Archives accessioned 55,552 cubic feet of analog records and 9 terabytes of electronic records into the permanent archival collection.

Digitized records in the National Archives Catalog: 239,433,214 pages

NARA digital images in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA): 17.8 million

NARA images in Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons: 1.5 million

Total number of views of NARA records on all Wiki platforms: 1.7 billion

Number of public research rooms: 34

Number of research visits: 79,000 (2019)*; 4,200 (2022 YTD)

Number of items furnished in NARA research rooms: 229,000 (2019)*

Number of off-site reference requests fulfilled: 143,000 (2019)* 96,000 (2022 YTD)

Number of requests for veterans records fulfilled: 1.2 million (2019)* 874,000 (2022 YTD)

Number of museum visitors (2019)*: 3 million (1.1 million at the National Archives Museum and 1.9 million at the Presidential Libraries)

Number of Education and Public Program attendees (DC): 21,058 (2019)* 235,522 (2022 YTD)

Number of Education and Public Program attendees (Presidential Libraries, New York, Kansas City): 588,476 (2019)* 662,237 (2022 YTD)

Federal Records Centers

26 million cubic feet of agency records, including:

• More than 1 million cubic feet of “accessioned-in-place” records stored for NARA
• More than 334,000 cubic feet of classified records
• More than 57,000 cubic feet of courtesy storage for the U.S. House and Senate

2023 volume of work

• 1 million cubic feet of new materials shelved
• More than 1.5 million cubic feet disposed
• More than 1.5 million Official Military Personnel File reference requests (St. Louis)
• More than 9.4 million IRS requests completed
• More than 725,000 general reference requests completed
• More than 52,000 cubic feet of permanent records transferred into NARA’s archival holdings

Budget: (2022 enacted) $695 million total: $477 million in appropriated**, plus $218 million in non-appropriated funds

(2023 request) $662 million total: $450 million in appropriated, plus $212 million in non-appropriated funds

** Includes one-time appropriations and community-directed spending (earmarks)

Number of NARA external websites: 37. This includes Archives.gov, the National Archives Catalog, History Hub, Presidential Library websites, archived WhiteHouse.gov websites from prior administrations, and other various public websites.