Meet the #1 Largest Landowner in All of Arkansas

As the 29^th largest state in the United States, Arkansas comprises 53,179 square miles of mountains, bayous, and forests. With the state’s low population density, about 29 people per square mile, Arkansas is one of the cheapest states to buy land. Discover the largest landowner in Arkansas and exactly how much terrain that landowner possesses.

The Largest Landowner in Arkansas

The federal government owns 9.4 percent of the 33,599,360 acres of land that make up Arkansas. That’s about 3,159,486 acres under the government’s management.

Overall, the total land area of the United States is 2.27 billion acres, of which the federal government owns about 640 million acres or 28 percent. And, out of all the states, Arkansas ranks 19^th for the amount of land federally controlled.

Federal Agencies Managing Arkansas Land

Five main federal agencies oversee the public lands in Arkansas. They are the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Defense, and the Bureau of Land Management. Of the five, the National Park Service manages most of the acres owned by the largest landowner in Arkansas. Here are the number of acres each department controls based on reports in 2018.

• U.S. Forest Service: 2,593,165 acres or about 82 percent of federally owned land.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: 379,648 acres or about 12 percent of federally owned land.
• U.S. National Park Service: 98,346 acres or about 3 percent of federally owned land.
• U.S. Department of Defense 86,922 acres or about 2.7 percent of federally owned land.
• U.S. Bureau of Land Management: 1,405 acres or about 0.0004 percent of federally owned land.

How the Federal Government Uses the Land

With the two national forests, 12 wilderness areas, four national historic sites, and the historic Trail of Tears, there are many features the government works to preserve. The incredible Ouachita National Forest alone is 1.8 million acres in Arkansas and Oklahoma. About 2.77 million people visited the state’s parks or national monuments in 2013. That generated about $144.3 million in revenue for Arkansas.

Also, mining companies may apply for leases from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to mine for resources. The main drilling exploration is for gas and oil.

Conclusion

While the federal government owns the most amount of land in the state, the next top three landowners in Arkansas oversee large parts of Arkansas. Weyerhaeuser is the largest private landowner in the state, with 1.3 million acres. In fact, this company owns 13 million acres across the country. In third place is Bill Gates, having purchased 47,927 acres of Arkansas’s landscape. And finally, owning a total of 6,000 acres, the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust is the fourth largest landowner in Arkansas.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Michael Dean Shelton