The establishment of a national park system is an important part of China's efforts to promote its ecological progress. It is also a major measure to solve the problems such as the overlapped setting, management by multiple agencies, unclear boundaries, confusing rights and responsibilities, as well as severe clashes between conservation and development, in developing China's protected areas. According to the unified deployment of the central government, a batch of national parks will be formally established, and a unified management system at different levels will be basically in place by 2020. Based on two years of data collection and field research for the first batch of 10 national park pilots, this paper summarized the experiences and achievements, sorted out the existing problems, and proposed the targeted recommendations. The paper aims to fully display the latest progress of the national park system pilots and provide reference and basis for promoting the comprehensive construction of China's national park system. The results show that each pilot area has basically established a hierarchical and unified management system and innovated the operating mechanisms. Conservation has been strengthened, capital investment has gradually increased, scientific research cooperation has deepened, and public participation has gradually enhanced. The national park system pilots have produced obviously ecological effects and the social benefits, as well as initially improved the people's livelihood. However, there are still problems such as uneven level and type of management institutions, incompletely legal system, failure to establish a long-term fund guarantee mechanism, lagging in the construction of talent teams, prominent contradictions between protection and development, and unreasonable spatial scope. We suggest that the necessary measures should be taken to improve the existing problems, the effective experiences should be promoted actively, and the construction of the national park system should be accelerated.