The U.S. has a total land area of 2.26 billion acres. In 2017, the latest year for which complete data is available, about 29% was grassland pasture and range, 28% was forest-use land and 17% of the land area was cropland.
Urban areas accounted for 3% of U.S. land, and a variety of special uses accounted for 14%. Special-use land, most of which is devoted to rural parks and wilderness areas, is largely concentrated in Alaska and other states in the western half of the U.S., where there are larger amounts of public lands. Miscellaneous other uses made up the remaining 9%.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) maintains an inventory of all major uses of public and private land in the 50 states, which it updates every five years using data from various sources.— USDA ERS
