Every overland trip in this country starts with a question most maps never answer: whose ground is this? The answer decides whether you can leave the pavement, where you can sleep and who sets the rules when you do.
The Congressional Research Service keeps the count. Its report on federal land ownership adds up the acres held by the five agencies that manage almost all of it: the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Department of Defense. We read its two state tables row by row and did the arithmetic. This is what they show.
One country, two maps
The five agencies manage 615,203,294 acres, which the report puts at 27.1 percent of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the fifty states and the District. It is not spread evenly. Alaska holds 222.4 million of those acres, more than a third of the total. The eleven contiguous western states, from Washington to New Mexico, hold another 345.5 million. Together that is 92.3 percent.
Everything else, thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia, shares 47.3 million acres, which is 7.7 percent. That single split explains why a traveller in Nevada plans by picking a direction and a traveller in Ohio plans by finding a forest.
Five states are more than half federal: Nevada at 79.8 percent, Utah at 63.1, Idaho at 61.9, Alaska at 60.8 and Oregon at 52.3. Thirteen states are under two percent, among them Texas, New York, Illinois, Kansas and most of New England. The report draws the same line from the other side: fourteen eastern or midwestern states and the District each hold less than half a million federal acres, while eleven contiguous western states and Alaska each hold more than ten million.
Source 1
Who holds what
The Bureau of Land Management is the largest landlord, with 244.4 million acres, 39.7 percent of the total. Seven acres in ten of it are in the eleven western states and nearly all the rest is in Alaska. In the other thirty-eight states it manages about 377,000 acres in all, which is why its name means little to anyone who learned to drive dirt in the East.
The Forest Service follows with 193.1 million acres, 31.4 percent. It is the one agency with real ground in every region. The Fish and Wildlife Service manages 89.3 million acres and the National Park Service 80.1 million, but both totals are mostly Alaska: 85.9 percent of refuge land and 65.5 percent of park land are there. The Department of Defense holds 8.4 million acres, closed to the public unless an installation says otherwise.
The five agencies, by acres
- 01Bureau of Land Management: 244.4 million
- 02Forest Service: 193.1 million
- 03Fish and Wildlife Service: 89.3 million
- 04National Park Service: 80.1 million
- 05Department of Defense: 8.4 million
Source 2
What each landlord means for a trip
The agency matters more than the acreage, because each one runs its ground differently. Bureau of Land Management and national forest land is where most of the country’s open road networks and dispersed camping are found. Camping away from developed sites is generally allowed unless an area is posted or closed, each office sets its own stay limit, and the forest’s motor vehicle use map is the legal record of which roads are open to which vehicles.
National parks work the other way round. Vehicles stay on designated roads, and camping is in designated campgrounds or by backcountry permit. Wildlife refuges exist for wildlife first, so many allow no camping at all and a few, such as Kofa in Arizona, allow camping under rules of their own. Military land is closed unless a range publishes a permit system, as the Barry M. Goldwater Range does for El Camino del Diablo.
None of that is a substitute for the office that manages the ground you are about to drive. Rules, closures and fire restrictions are set locally and change with the season.
East of the Rockies, the forest is the public land
Take away the West, Alaska and Hawaii and the Forest Service still manages 29.3 million acres. Michigan has 2.88 million of them, Minnesota 2.83 million, Arkansas 2.59 million, South Dakota 2.0 million, Virginia 1.67 million and Wisconsin 1.53 million. For most of the country, a national forest is what federal land means.
It is also only part of the picture. The federal tables leave out state forests, state wildlife areas and county land, and in the East and the Midwest those are often larger than the federal holdings beside them. That is why our public land map draws state and local land from the US Geological Survey’s protected areas database alongside the federal layer. Without it the eastern half of the map looks empty, and it is not.
Source 2
The direction of travel
Federal land is not growing. Between 1990 and 2024 the five agencies’ total fell by 31.7 million acres, or 4.9 percent, from 646.9 million to 615.2 million. Most of that was the Bureau of Land Management disposing of land in Alaska and the Department of Defense reducing its holdings.
Underneath that the direction differs by agency: the Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service have each grown since 1990. Sixteen states lost federal land over those years, and thirty-four states and the District gained it.
Source 1
How to read these numbers
The report counts land managed by five agencies, and its notes say plainly that the figures understate federal land, because they leave out bodies such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, whose reservoirs account for many of the campgrounds in the central and eastern states. All federal land together is roughly 640 million acres, about 28 percent of the country, and the five agencies hold about 96 percent of it. Tribal land is not counted here either: it is held in trust and is not public land.
The acreages are as of September 30, 2024, in the version of the report dated September 14, 2026. The state percentages and the 27.1 percent total are the report’s own printed figures. The shares by region and by agency on this page are ours, made by adding its rows; every row we publish matches the printed table.
An acre on a table is not an acre you can reach. Federal land is often checkerboarded with private ground, reached only across someone else’s property, or closed to vehicles as wilderness. The table tells you where to look. The map, and then the local office, tell you where you can go.
Source 1
Questions people ask
Which state has the most federal land?
By acres, Alaska, with 222.4 million. By share of the state, Nevada, at 79.8 percent. Both figures are from the Congressional Research Service report R42346, with data as of September 30, 2024.
Which states have the least federal land?
Connecticut and Iowa, at 0.3 percent each. Thirteen states are under two percent, including Texas, New York, Illinois and Kansas.
Can I camp anywhere on federal land?
No. It depends on the agency and the local office. Dispersed camping is generally allowed on Bureau of Land Management and national forest land unless an area is posted or closed, with stay limits set by each office. National parks allow camping only in designated sites or by permit, many wildlife refuges allow none, and military land is closed.
Why does the map show public land in the East when these tables show so little?
Because the tables count only five federal agencies. State forests, state wildlife areas and county land are not in them, and in the East they are most of the public land. Our map draws them from the US Geological Survey’s protected areas database.
Is tribal land public land?
No. Tribal land is held in trust for tribes and is not counted in these tables. Travel and camping there is by permission of the tribe.
