Not only parks

After I uploaded the parks map on Reddit, people let me know that there were some inconsistencies in the data, and also that I should have included many more different sources. The number one source everyone wanted to see was the Bureau of Land Management because it covers huge territories all around the country. I decided to use some of their ideas and made a new map.

Here is an updated map of parks — this time it includes not only parks and national forests but also protected and conservation lands, national monuments, state parks, state forests, conservation easements areas, wilderness, wild research and study areas, scenic areas, and some other more peculiar. This data comes from the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Parks Service, US Forest Service, state departments of conservation, state park and recreation departments, state fish and wildlife departments, and is aggregated by USGS in Protected Areas Database (PAD-US) 2.0.

Only land territories with not restricted and not closed access were selected. Moreover, not all the data presented in the dataset was included because some areas seem to be non-recreational like military, sport, or grazing territories or are in fact urban features like for example National memorials.

I used the same methodology as the last time, so only total square miles of “wild” areas changed. And this change truly was drastic. Now the state with the highest share of protected land on its territory is North Dakota. 83% of its territory is occupied by protected areas! South Dakota is very close to it together with its neighbors Minessota and Montana. The western vastness, while still impressive, doesn’t look so overpowering anymore. Kansas got some more percent in its statistics and yielded the last place to Oklahoma.

Thank you for all who said nice words about the previous map or suggested to make it better.