The Parks and Recreation Department offers indoor and outdoor leisure and recreation opportunities to Richardson citizens and corporate residents year-round. The department presents award-winning special events, festivals, and activities.
On-going programs are offered year round by the Department. To learn more, choose a page from the menu above.

The Department is responsible for the maintenance of city parks, swimming pools, medians, roadsides, city-owned drainage easements, and street sweeping. The Parks and Recreation Department plants more than 100 acres of wildflowers each year.

The Richardson area was first settled in the 1840s and 1850s as a pioneer community called Breckinridge.  The town of Richardson was founded in 1873 next to the Houston & Texas Central Railway tracks, was named for the railroad contractor E. H. Richardson, and became a thriving community of farms, stores, cotton gins and churches. Richardson remained a sleepy farming community until the 1950s. With the arrival of Collins Radio and Texas Instruments, Richardson became a popular location for college-educated professionals. Known as the “Electronic City” and later the “Telecom Corridor”, Richardson continues to grow and prosper, with many diverse cultures, faiths and populations adding to its vibrant mix of high-tech business and educational opportunities. In Richardson’s rich history, citizens have enjoyed the finest offerings a community can have with exemplary schools, first class parks, excellent  library, sophisticated transportation, all managed by a well run local government. Many people who lived in Richardson chose this community because of its quality of life. In 2009, Richardson proudly celebrates 50 years of Parks and Recreation Services that has served its citizenry with the finest of trails, parks, festivals, recreation programs, senior citizen activities, and tourist attractions all wrapped in a well manicured city. During its 50 years the Richardson Parks and Recreation Department has provided families greater quality of life through first class programs that have become a tradition, and a source of pride within the community. This is evidenced by greater real estate values and first class economic development proving that Richardson is not only a great host to a business and industry, but a great place to call home.

New Featured Application Now Available:

The City of Richardson Tree Inventory project began in September 2008. The trees shown on this map are only those collected thus far, and the inventory will be continually updated as resources allow.

The City of Richardson recognizes its stewardship responsibilities to protect the environment and to enhance the character of the community and is fostering a tree inventory system on parks and City managed properties. This tree inventory, once completed, will be a vital tool in a strategic tree management program for the care and enhancement of this significant asset, our urban forest.

The benefits of trees are numerous beyond their natural beauty and welcome shade:

1.We enjoy having trees around us because trees make life more pleasant by giving us serenity, peacefulness, and tranquility.

2.Our city is enriched by the way trees enhance our urban views, reduce glare and harsh reflections, align flowing pedestrian corridors and compliment the architecture of our urbanscape.

3.The urban forest alters the environment we live and work in by moderating the surrounding climate, improving our air quality, conserving water and providing wildlife habitat.

4.Trees have a definite economic value not only as landscape specimens but also through their strategic placement by lowering energy usage in residential, commercial and office structures.

As with any asset management program one needs to quantify the individual units to begin managing the whole. This urban forestry inventory will be one of the tools the City of Richardson Parks and Recreation Department will utilize in caring for and enhancing our urban forestry resource.  View map...