How much wilderness has been designated by Congress?
Since Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, over 100 individual acts have been passed designating over 600 wilderness areas. As of 2004 about 106 million acres have been designated wilderness in all but six states. Of this total, 54 million acres are in Alaska and about 48 million in the contiguous 48 states. This is about 2.5% of the land in the lower 48 states. To place this acreage in context, according to the Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Inventory, there are approximately 110 million acres of intensively developed land, or nearly 6% of the land, within the 48 states. And this development is increasing by over 2 million acres per year.
Since Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, over 130 individual wilderness bills have designated more than 680 Wilderness Areas. These areas total over 106 million acres in 44 States. Of this acreage, more than 57 million acres are in Alaska and over 49 million in the coterminous United States and Hawaii. This represents about 2.5 percent of the land in the lower 48 states. To place this acreage in context, the Department of Agriculture estimates that there are approximately 110 million acres of intensively developed land in the coterminous United States (nearly 6 percent).
