Infographic Article Showing Land Use in US

[BillTre]

This Bloomburg article uses an set of interesting graphics (based on a variety of government data) to display how land is used in the US, usually down to pixels of 250,000 acres.

 

[Bystander]

"Forest" is almost all back east?

 

[BillTre]

Yeah, one of many surprising things.

 

[jtbell]

"Forest" is almost all back east?

I'm not surprised, having driven through a lot of "pasture/range" and "cropland" on my trips out West.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Stop eating red meat ppl

 

[StatGuy2000]

I'm not surprised to read that urban creep (I'm assuming this would include suburban sprawl as well, with construction of new homes and subdivisions) would outpace all other land-use categories.

What is interesting to note is just how much land is owned by the 100 largest private landowners (the article doesn't state whether these private landowners are individuals or corporations). According to the article, ownership of land by these private landowners have grown since 2008 from 28 million acres to 40 million, a growth rate of 42.9% within a decade if my arithmetic is right.

What I would like to see is a graph indicating the overall trends in private landownership over the past 50 years or so. I'm curious how readily available that information is, since I wonder whether ownership of land is a matter of public record in the US.

 

[Tom.G]

since I wonder whether ownership of land is a matter of public record in the US.

Yes it is. However it is by County so you would have to get records from 3 007 individual government agencies. This would probably be more work than the data processing!

Edit: After looking at the maps, I noticed this tidbit: In the "Methodology" text just after the map:
"Data showing the 100 largest landowning families are based on descriptions of acreage and land type in The Land Report magazine."
That would certainly be easier than asking 3 007 counties!