Agricultural land uses account for over half of the U.S. land base

U.S. land area amounts to 2.26 billion acres, with over half or nearly 1.2 billion acres in agricultural uses. The share of the land base in agricultural use declined from 59 percent in 1959 to 53 percent in 2017, the latest year for which comprehensive national data are available. Gradual declines have occurred in cropland, while grazed forestland has decreased more rapidly. In 2017, 390 million acres of agricultural land were in cropland (a 15-percent decline from 1959); 659 million acres were in grassland pasture and range (4 percent more than in 1949); 132 million acres were in grazed forestland (46 percent less than in 1959); and 6 million acres were in farmsteads and farm roads (47 percent less than in 1959). Urban land, while it represents a relatively small share of the U.S. land base, has nearly tripled in area since 1959 to 74 million acres.

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