The United States is the fourth largest country in the world by area, covering nearly 2.3 billion acres. The largest landowner in the United States is the U.S. government, which is controlled by different departments, such as the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Defense, and others that control different parts of federal land. While state governments also own large amounts of land, there are also private landowners who own hundreds of thousands of acres of land across the country, with a handful of them each owning more than 1 million acres.
To identify the ten families with the largest private land areas in the U.S., Land Report magazine's 2019 magazine based on other published reports, online databases, tax records, and information provided by various landowners, including rural land holdings.
Land owned by the largest landowners in the United States tends to be concentrated in certain areas, particularly the Southwest and West Coast. South and west Texas, as well as New Mexico, are popular among ranchers. Large swathes of California, Wyoming and Montana are used by owners to raise livestock, farms, pastures and produce timber. With the exception of northern Maine, hardly a single piece of land in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States belongs to major landowners.
Many of the people and families on this list are ranchers or oil company owners, not household names. However, a handful of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Ted Turner have bought large tracts of land, either for entrepreneurial purposes or simply for their own private use.
Let's take a look at the top 10 families in the U.S. with the largest private land area:
10. Heir to the King Ranch family
Land Area: 911,215 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: three times the size of Los Angeles
King Ranch's heirs own their own ranch in southern Texas, covering more than 900,000 acres. The ranch produced from the land was originally purchased by Captain Richard King in 1853 and has been passed down for generations.
9. The Singleton family
Land Area: 1,110,000 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: three times the size of Houston
The Singleton family owns many ranches, most of them in New Mexico. The family's 1.1 million acres also include land in California.
8. Brad Kelly
Land Area: 1,139,984 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Roughly equal to half the area of Puerto Rico
Brad Kelley's investment team purchased the famous Calumet Farm, a thoroughbred breeding and training facility in Kentucky, in 2012. Today, much of Kelley's 1.2 million acres are located in Kentucky.
7. Peter Buck
Land Area: 1,236,000 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: the size of Trinidad and Tobago
Peter Buck is a founding partner at Subway Restaurant. Barker is the owner of the Call Timbers Trust, one of the largest owners of woodland in Maine. Overall, Buck has more than 1.2 million acres of land, mostly in Maine.
6. The Owen family
Land Area: 1,247,880 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
The Owen family is the sixth largest private landowner in the United States. In addition to the family's 1.2 million acres of land (mostly in Maine), the Owens family owns about 2 million acres of land in Canada.
5. Stan Klenk
Land area: 1.38 million acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: the size of Prince Edward Island
Real estate tycoon and owner of the Los Angeles Rams, Stan Kroenke, owns 1.4 million acres of land in the United States, including 124,000 acres of ranch in Montana and other land in Wyoming. Kroenke married Ann Walton, walmart's heir to the wealth.
4. The Reed family
Land Area: 1,726,295 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Approximately equal to: half the area of Connecticut
The Reid family has owned and operated the logging company Green Diamond ResourceCo for five generations. The family's 1.7 million acres are primarily spread across Washington, Oregon and California.
3. Ted Turner
Land area: 2,000,000 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: twice as much as Rhodes
CNN founder Ted Turner owns 2 million acres of land, primarily in New Mexico, South Dakota, Nebraska and Georgia. Much of Turner's land is used as grazing ground for more than 50,000 buffaloes and is the largest private bison herd in the world.
2. The Emerson family
Land Area: 2,078,032 acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Approximately equal to: one-third of vermont's area
The Emerson family owns and operates Sierra Pacific Industries, a company that cuts down usable wood after a forest fire and sells it to a timber retailer. Through Sierra Pacific, the family owns about 2 million acres of land in California and Washington.
1. John Malone
Land area: 2.2 million acres (1 acre equals approximately 4,047 square meters)
Roughly equal to: half the size of Lake Ontario
John Malone is the largest private landowner in the United States. A media mogul, he made a fortune, founding Tele-Communications, Inc (TCI), where he served as ceo before selling it to AT&T in 1999 for $50 billion. Malone's 2.2 million acres are primarily located in Maine, Colorado and Wyoming, New Mexico, and include for-profit cattle ranches.
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