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Why So Much Land In The West Is Owned By The Federal Government
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Apr 2, 2025
Substack: https://geographybygeoff.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geographybygeoff/ Podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/what-if-geography or @WiGPod The United States federal government is the largest land owner in the entire country. In particular, most of its current land holdings exist within the western half of the contiguous United States, with very little in the eastern half. This might seem odd, but there's a very real reason why the federal government has held on to so much of the west... Photos and videos come from Pexels, Pixabay. Attribution below: Alex Garcia Alex Kad Alex Radelich Aric Shelby Arthouse Studio Dean Diemert Fernando Latorre Get Lost Mike Haakon Birkeli Kelly Lacy Musko.io Peter Fowler
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The western half of the United States has some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes anywhere in the
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world. From dense, lush forests to expansive deserts, from incredibly high peaks to low
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low canyons, the West is incredibly varied. While all of this land exists within the Western states
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about half of it is owned directly by the federal government. Here's why
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Welcome to Geography by Jeff. Today we're going to explore the vast expanse of the West and why
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so much of it is owned by the federal government relative to the eastern half of the country
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It's a pretty interesting, if kind of complicated, geographic story. But before we get to today's episode, if you enjoy my content, be sure to check out the What
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If Geography podcast. Join me and geography professor Hunter Shobie as we take deep dives
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into your favorite what-if scenarios and talk about them using geography. New episodes premiere every Wednesday, and you can listen right here on YouTube, Spotify
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today, the federal government owns just about 50% of all land in the western half of the
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contiguous United States. But while that seems like a lot, it wasn't all that long ago that the federal government
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owned far more. This is due to the very nature of how the U.S. acquired the land in the first place
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and it all begins only a few years after the American Revolutionary War was won
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Back in 1785, the budding United States government found itself with an interesting problem
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It owned a lot of land, but with no organization or plan to manage it
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Given this, the U.S. Congress at the time passed the Land Ordinance of 1785
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Upon passing, many of the original 13 states gave up vast quantities of land to the federal government
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so it could be surveyed and cataloged before being released back to the states for settlement
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So while the area we're largely talking about today is in the West, it's worth pointing out
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that much of the East was also owned by the federal government at one point. As the United States continued to grow out West
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this of course continued to be the general process. And given the United States' penchant
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for acquiring vast quantities of land in one swing such as when it purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 A process such as this was basically a requirement There simply were no states in these areas which could take ownership of the land the U government acquired
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and, as such, the federal government had to step in. But the federal government didn't ever really
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intend on keeping the land. In 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the first ever Homestead Act
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This law allowed for very specific citizens of the United States to claim land in newly organized
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territories so long as they actually move there to cultivate the land. This law, and more like it
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continually passed through Congress in order to encourage more people to move out west
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claim land, make it productive, and generally help the United States lay claim to territories
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it's sometimes only semi-officially owned. This strategy worked tremendously well in the east and
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the midwest of the country due to the land being fairly easy to manage and settle. And it's for
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this reason that the federal government doesn't actually own all that much land to the east
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relative to the West. Once you hit the Rocky Mountains, however, things get a bit more complicated
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This image from very recent history highlights just how this played out. A pretty consistent development pattern exists
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right up to a certain point, where everything then becomes much more scattered and dispersed
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And this has had a huge impact on how land is managed in the West, but it's not all managed the same way
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Today, the federal government owns 47% of all land in the West
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with an additional 7% held in trust for Native American tribes. This might seem like a lot of land
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but there's a very real reason why the federal government owns so much of it rather than the
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individual states themselves. But before we get to those reasons, if you're enjoying this video
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now would be a great time to subscribe. More fun geography videos are just a single click away
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Federally owned land in the West is as diverse as the states they're within. You see, while it's easy to assume that the US government owns it all wholesale
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and therefore manages it all the same way, it's actually broken out by six different
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federal departments, each of which has its own priorities and obligations towards the land it
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stewards. Of the total amount of land the federal government owns in the West, 48% is owned by the
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Bureau of Land Management 39 is owned by the Forest Service 6 is owned by the National Park Service 5 by the Department of Defense 2 by the Fish and Wildlife Service and 1 by the Bureau of Reclamation And it not broken out evenly by state either
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Some states' lands are far more heavily owned than others. Nevada leads this pack by far
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with 89% of its total land owned by the federal government, much of which is owned directly
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by the Bureau of Land Management specifically. That's followed by Utah, Idaho, and Oregon
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each with over half of their land owned by the federal government. Wyoming and California are both at just about half of their total land
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And finally, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, and Montana have the least amount of land owned by the federal government in total
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but you'll still notice that it's quite a lot. Every single state in the West is owned at least 25% by the federal government
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It's worth mentioning here that the Bureau of Indian Affairs also owns quite a lot of land as well
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but this is largely as part of a trust. So while the federal government might technically own it to a degree
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they don't really have the same authority or ability to manage it as they would with other departments
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This is also why you sometimes see a discrepancy in how much land the federal government owns in the West
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We now know more specifically who manages the federally owned land and which states have the most federally owned land in total
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So the next question is, what does the federal government do with it all
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To figure that out, we need to dive into each department a little bit, starting with the Bureau of Land Management
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because they manage the most land by far. The Bureau of Land Management is
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for lack of a better description, the bureau that manages the land that nobody else really wanted
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This would be largely desert or scrub lands where there's little agricultural means of production
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or really much of anything. So instead, the Bureau of Land Management
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often leases out much of their land to cattle farmers for grazing purposes. They also lease some of their land for mining
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and natural resource gathering, as well as recreation. Overall, the Bureau of Land Management
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is a huge moneymaker for the federal government. With an annual budget of about $1.3 billion
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dollars, it generates approximately $6.2 billion overall. The next largest holder of federal land
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is the Forest Service. And the Forest Service does exactly what it sounds like. It manages the
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country's large expanse of forests that still remain. This means that it conserves land for
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forests but also leases out land for timber harvesting Increasingly this is also the department which is forced to handle large wildfires year in year out as climate change worsens already dry conditions in the West
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The National Park Service, of course, is charged with managing the country's national parks
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monuments, recreation areas, and other sites. While conservation is a big part
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of what the National Park Service is charged with, today it's almost entirely recreation-focused
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The National Park Service owns some of the most awe-inspiring lands in the West
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such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Crater Lake. The remaining departments don't have that much land compared to the others
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The Department of Defense doesn't spell out exactly how it uses its land, for obvious reasons
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The Fish and Wildlife Service primarily manages its lands around conservation and endangered species
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And the Bureau of Reclamation is almost entirely focused on resource management and hydroelectricity generation. All of these federal departments have an
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important role to play in how the West's land is used. The federal government today still owns so much of the West for one kind of bland reason
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Nobody else really wanted the land when it was available for homesteading. As settlers moved west, they largely settled and homesteaded in the few valleys where people could
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live off the land, but otherwise had no intention of trying to settle on the Rocky Mountains or
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within the Mojave Desert. As the years and decades dragged on, the federal government gave up on
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trying to give away its land under the various homesteading acts it had passed. Instead, it turned
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its focus on managing and conserving the land for the various reasons we've already run through
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and it appears to be managing the land pretty well overall. The Bureau of Land Management
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for example, charges far less for grazing than any private landowner would. And for the most part
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most of the states out west probably don't want to manage all the land themselves anyways
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as they have neither the budget or staff to handle such complex geographic regions
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The federal government is often accused of hoarding land to the demise of individual states
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But the US government tried for over 100 years to get rid of it all. Today, it's settled for managing it as best as it can
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which is probably the best we could hope for given that much of the land is actually pretty harsh
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I hope you enjoyed learning more about federally owned lands in the West. If you did, please subscribe to my channel
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And if you wanna watch more of my videos, you can do so here. Thanks for watching
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See you next time
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