National Wilderness Preservation System
There are 148 wilderness areas in California totaling just over 15,000,000 acres (61,000 km2). The largest is Death Valley Wilderness at 3,055,413 acres (12,364.82 km2), the largest federally designated wilderness in the continental United States, and the smallest is the Rocks and Islands Wilderness at 5 acres (20,000 m2). The wilderness areas are managed by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. It should be noted that rarely, if ever, are designated wilderness areas stand alone protected areas, and thus their areas are, in all likelihood, already accounted for in the various agencies' inventories.
Read more about this topic: California Protected Areas
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