In an annual ranking of park systems in the country’s 100 largest cities, Honolulu landed in the middle of the pack.

While the city fell 16 places this year to 48th place, the drop primarily was due to the fact that the Trust for Public Land evaluated the entire island of Oahu rather than just the city’s urban core.

The change was requested by Honolulu officials as a way to help them improve parks planning, trust officials said.

The rankings, scheduled to be released today, are based on four factors: park acreage, investment, amenities and park access, which measures the percentage of residents living within a 10-minute walk of a park.

Honolulu previously achieved among the highest scores in the country in the access category. But with the entire island now included, Honolulu’s access ranking fell below the national average.

On the other hand, the expanded area boosted Honolulu’s median park size to 6.8 acres compared with 2.3 acres last year. But it wasn’t enough to offset the reduced access.

Amenities measured for the report were the number of basketball hoops, dog parks, playgrounds, recreation and senior centers, restrooms and splash pads.

While Honolulu scored the maximum for its abundance of recreation and senior centers, it placed low on dog parks and playgrounds and tallied zero out of 40 points for splash pads. (Beaches were not counted as splash pads.)

Honolulu Parks and Recreation Director Michele Nekota said the Trust for Public Land was asked to examine parks in all areas of the island because urban Honolulu is not representative of the entire city and county of Honolulu.

The report, however, was not perfect, she said. In fact, the amount of money spent by the Department of Parks and Recreation per resident in fiscal year 2017 far exceeded the $57 noted, she said.

“Our operating budget in that time was over $76.5 million, with a capital improvement budget of nearly $52 million,” Nekota said in a statement.

Minneapolis — which achieved the maximum score in parks spending, with nearly $250 per resident — narrowly edged its Minnesota neighbor, St. Paul, to earn top honors for the third consecutive year.

Closer to Honolulu, Orlando, Fla., tied Colorado Springs, Colo., for 46th place, while Dallas was right behind the Hawaii capital at 49th place and Miami finished 50th. Charlotte, N.C., was last, placing just below Fresno, Calif.; Mesa, Ariz.; and Hialeah, Fla.

The index this year included volunteer hours and charitable contributions in its calculation of parks spending, providing a bump in the rankings to cities whose residents strongly support their park systems.

Lea Hong, state director for the Trust for Public Land, said Oahu’s parks could use more public support.

“The parks people seem to be working hard to improve our parks,” Hong said.

Nekota said the city continues to strive for improvements in both facilities and recreational services.

”Our Summer Fun program will begin next month, providing nearly 10,000 keiki with affordable summer programming. The mayor’s Kakou for Parks initiative has made improvements to 127 different parks all over the island in just over three years,” Nekota said.

”It is hard to find a comparably ambitious park improvement effort in the entire country, but that is not represented in reports like these,” she said.

The Trust for Public Land said it is leading a movement to put a park or natural area within a 10-minute walk of every U.S. resident. More than 200 mayors have endorsed the 10-minute goal, including Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell.

Hong said the island’s beaches were not included as public natural areas because of difficulties in verifying GPS high-water mark locations. But hopefully accommodations can be made to acknowledge the public shorelines in the future, she said.

More information about the report is available at www.tpl.org/10minutewalk.