FAQs
How much of the U.S. is federal public lands? ›
The federal government manages about 640 million acres (2.6 million km2) of land in the United States, which is about 28% of the total land area of 2.27 billion acres (9.2 million km2).
What state is 80% owned by the government? ›The amount and percentage of federally owned land in each state vary widely, ranging from 0.3% of land (in Connecticut and Iowa) to 80.1% of land (in Nevada).
How much land is owned by the federal government? ›An overview of federal land policy and how federal land is managed can be accessed here. The federal government owns around 620 million acres of land (about 27 percent) of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States. Around 92 percent of federally owned acres are in 12 Western states.
Why is there so much federal land in Nevada? ›When Nevada became a state in 1864, its constitution explicitly said that the state wouldn't claim any public land that wasn't spoken for. This left the vast majority of Nevada's land in the public estate, managed by the federal government.
Which state is home to about 75% of all federally managed public land? ›The state with the highest percentage of federal land is Nevada, of which 80.1%, or 56,262,610 acres of its total landmass is federally managed.
What state has the most federal land? ›Nevada has the highest percentage of federal land of the 50 states at 84.9 percent, but Alaska has the most federal land in absolute terms. According to CRS, the federal land in Alaska totals 223,803,098 acres compared to 59,681,502 acres in Nevada.
What percentage of the U.S. is private land? ›Ownership of U.S. Land
The land surface of the United States covers 2.3 billion acres. Sixty percent (1.4 billion acres) is privately owned, 29 percent is owned by the Federal Government, 9 percent is owned by State and local governments, and 2 percent is in Indian reservations (fig. 1.3.
Some areas are managed as wilderness, while others are operated with acceptable commercial exploitation. As of 2022, the 42,826 protected areas covered 1,235,486 km2 (477,024 sq mi), or 13 percent of the land area of the United States.
How much of the land in the U.S. is set aside as public lands? ›There is a staggering 840 million acres of public land in the United States—that's more than one-third of the country—and that didn't happen by accident. It took champions who pushed for protections and, in many cases, the power of the presidency was the key factor.
Are public lands federal? ›Public land is managed by various federal, state, and local agencies, but make no mistake: It belongs to all of us, and is open to everyone. But while more Americans than ever are visiting public lands, they still only represent a small fraction of the population.