Recreation capacity is a popular concept, but there is no established rationale or methodology for understanding, measuring, and applying it. The report recognizes the complex and dynamic nature of capacity by reviewing separately the literature which bears on each of five categories of factors which influence capacity: administrative, biological, physical, social, and temporal. The literature is dominated by published reports dealing primarily with the physical factors and secondarily with the social factors. Administrative, biological, and temporal factors have received minor attention in the literature. (Modified author abstract)