The Federal Government owns nearly 650 million acres of land – almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States. Federally-owned and managed public lands include National Parks, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges. These are lands that are held for all Americans. The Federal agencies responsible for managing America’s natural resources must meet both the public desire to protect them and the public expectation of economic growth based on them. Within the Federal Government, a number of agencies contribute to the management of natural resources associated with public lands. All of these Federal agencies are partners in the production of nationalatlas.gov.
In the United States there are only two kinds of reserved lands that are well-known: military and Indian. An Indian Reservation is land reserved for a tribe when it relinquished its other land areas to the United States through treaties. More recently, Congressional acts, Executive Orders, and administrative acts have created Reservations. There are approximately 275 Indian land areas in the United States administered as Indian Reservations (reservations, pueblos, rancherias, communities, etc.). The largest is the Navajo Reservation of some 16 million acres of land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Many of the smaller Reservations are less than 1,000 acres with the smallest less than 100 acres. On each Reservation, the local governing authority is the tribal government. Military reservations are managed by the Department of Defense. Examples include army posts, marine bases, naval stations, and air force bases.
Printable maps can be found at http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/fedlands.html
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