The most common public parks can be classified as neighborhood, urban, community or regional, linear, state, and national parks. Specialty parks can be public or private, depending on who owns them. They include theme parks, aquatic parks, and sport parks, and they are usually operated with the primary objective of generating revenue.

It is possible to distinguish some broad categories of parks in the United States: town squares, large city parks, pleasure grounds or cultural parks, neighborhood parks, and pocket parks.