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In the United States, national forest is a classification of protected and managed federal lands that are largely forest and woodland areas. They are owned collectively by the American people through the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service , a division of the United States Department of Agriculture .
The 193 million acres (780,000 km 2) of public land that are managed as national forests and grasslands are collectively known as the National Forest System. These lands are located in 44 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands and comprise about 9% of the total land area in the United States. The lands are organized into 155 national ...
National forests listed in this column in small text are constituent national forests managed by, but not included in the name of, the named national forest in normal text. To reach the figure of 154 national forests, count hyphenated names as two forests, with the exception of Manti–La Sal, which is the official name of one forest.
Most of the public land managed by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management is in the Western states. Public lands account for 25 to 75 percent of the total land area in these states. [1] The US Forest Service alone manages 193 million acres (780,000 km²) nationwide, or roughly 8% of the total land area in the United States. [2]
Wilderness areas are parts of national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, and BLM lands; some units are managed by different agencies. Initially, the NWPS included 34 areas protecting 9.1 million acres (37,000 km 2) in the national forests.
There are 433 official NPS units with a variety of titles, including national park, national monument, national historic site, national recreation area, and national battlefield. [6] Department of Agriculture. United States Forest Service (USFS) - Manages about 192.9 million acres (0.781 million km 2) of national forests (as of 2018).
The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests is an administrative entity combining two U.S. National Forests into one of the largest areas of public land in the Eastern United States. The forests cover 1.8 million acres (2,800 sq mi) of land in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia , West Virginia , and Kentucky .
The National Forest Management Act requires the Secretary of Agriculture to assess forest lands, develop a management program based on multiple-use, sustained-yield principles, and implement a resource management plan for each unit of the National Forest System. It is the primary statute governing the administration of national forests.