Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2012

The United States has a total land area of about 2.3 billion acres. In 2012, the major land uses were grassland pasture and rangeland at 655 million acres (29 percent of U.S. total); forest-use land at 632 million (28 percent); cropland at 392 million acres (17 percent); special uses (primarily park...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bigelow, Daniel, Borchers, Allison
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Unknown 2017
Subjects:
Agricultural and Food Policy
Crop Production/Industries
Demand and Price Analysis
Environmental Economics and Policy
Land Economics/Use
Livestock Production/Industries
Resource /Energy Economics and Policy
Land use
land-use change
agricultural land
nonagricultural land
cropland
forest-use land
forestland
pasture
rangeland
rural residential land
urban land
Tundra
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.263079
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/263079
Description
Summary:The United States has a total land area of about 2.3 billion acres. In 2012, the major land uses were grassland pasture and rangeland at 655 million acres (29 percent of U.S. total); forest-use land at 632 million (28 percent); cropland at 392 million acres (17 percent); special uses (primarily parks and wildlife areas) at 316 million acres (14 percent); miscellaneous uses (such as wetlands, tundra, and unproductive woodlands) at 196 million acres (9 percent); and urban land at 70 million acres (3 percent). This study presents findings from the most recent (2012) inventory of U.S. major land uses, drawing on data from USDA, the U.S. Census Bureau, public land management and conservation agencies, and other sources. The data are collected for each State to estimate the use of several broad classes and subclasses of agricultural and nonagricultural land over time. National and regional trends in land use are compared with earlier major land-use estimates.

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