Objectives National parks play an important role in the Chinese nature reserve system. To advance the realization of the concept of public welfare in Chinese national parks, there is an urgent need to explore a highly efficient, diversified, and universally applicable auxiliary tool. This paper took the official website of national parks as research objects, with the aime of investigating the value and function in public service and social governance.

Methods Adopting inductive summarization and comparative research methods, the official websites of national parks in the United States and Canada were selected as research samples for in-depth analyses of their excellent practices in the areas of universal sharing, science, education and recreation, and public services.

Results Mature national park websites in foreign countries have realized the wide transmission of national park public welfare values in terms of public participation, popularization and dissemination of science, and convenient services. The present study posited that the ongoing development of the Chinese national park official website construction could be optimized in four dimensions: public participation in management, deepening of science education, service quality improvement, and integration with the community. These measures were intended to further bring into play the important role of national parks in enhancing the ecological well-being of all the people.

Conclusions From the perspective of public welfare in Chinese national parks, this paper focused on three major aspects: sharing for all, science education and recreation, and public service. The paper discussed the mature experience of other countries, and proposes a strategy for the construction of Chinese national parks’ websites. The strategy aimed to make full use of the convenience of the Internet development and to enhance the influence and public participation in Chinese national parks through the design of inspiring and functional governmental affairs platforms.