List of U.S. Wilderness Areas

List Of U.S. Wilderness Areas

Four federal agencies of the United States government administer the U.S. Wildernesses, which includes 756 Wildernesses and 109,478,939 acres (443,045.55 km2). These agencies are:

• United States Forest Service
• United States National Park Service
• United States Bureau of Land Management
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service

This is an area larger than Iraq or the state of California. In Alaska, there are 57,425,569 acres (232,393.03 km2) of wilderness. This represents about 52% of the wilderness area in the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) has oversight of 43,890,500 acres (177,619 km2) of wilderness at 60 locations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has responsibility for 20,702,350 acres (83,779.4 km2) in 71 areas. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees 8,726,011 acres (35,312.91 km2) at 221 unique sites. The Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service oversees 36,160,078 acres (146,334.64 km2) of wilderness areas in 439 areas. Some wilderness areas are managed by multiple agencies, so the above totals exceed the actual number of units (756) in the system. In addition, some of the 60 NPS areas with wilderness have multiple units designated as such (for example, Lake Mead National Recreation Area).

Some areas are designated wilderness by state or tribal governments. These are not governed by the Federal National Wilderness Preservation System.