Special Report
This American Family’s Combined Land Is the Size of Puerto Rico
Published:
24/7 Wall St. Insights
American is one of the world’s largest countries, comprising a whopping 1.9 billion acres of land. Today, roughly 60% of American land is owned by individuals and corporations. According to Discount Lots, the average American can afford to purchase 3 acres of land. However, some American families own a shocking amount of the American landscape.
When Europeans colonized America, land came cheap. Years later, when President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862, citizens and future citizens were given up to 160 acres of land free of charge. New landholders were simply required to live on the acreage and commit to improving it. Since those early years, people began purchasing land for investment purposes. And as global populations expand, land becomes a much more precious resource.
The United States spans 3.8 million square miles, and every inch of it is owned by someone. The federal government ranks as the single largest landowner in the country by a wide margin, controlling approximately 640 million acres, or about 1 million square miles, through various departments and agencies.
An inherently limited resource, land is a valuable asset — and as demand for real estate has surged in recent years, it has only become more valuable. The median new home sale price more than doubled between mid-2012 and late 2022, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the average per-acre value of farmland in the U.S. surged by nearly 30% between 2020 and 2023.
Using data from The Land Report, a quarterly publication, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 25 largest landowners in the United States. The landowners on this list are ranked by total acres of land in their possession.
Among the 25 individuals and families on this list, land ownership ranges from 420,000 acres, roughly half the size of Yosemite National Park, to over 2.4 million acres, more than three times the size of Rhode Island. Many of these landowners are billionaires, and some, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, rank among the wealthiest people in the world.
In many cases, land holdings are used in part for business purposes. Bezos, for example, uses his 165,000-acre West Texas ranch as a rocket launch site for his aerospace company Blue Origin. Other common uses include ranching, farming, and resource extraction.
Land ownership in America reveals a shocking disparity between white and black citizens. A report put out by the United States Department of Agriculture, Who Owns the Land, shows massive inequality across races. The combined land owned by black Americans across the U.S. is less than the total acreage owned by the top five landowners in America. Not surprisingly, these top five landholders are all white. Though black Americans account for 13% of the U.S. population, they collectively own less than 1% of rural land.
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