How much of a national forest is actually public land?

At a glance

• The Forest Service owns about 84% of the land inside national forest boundaries; the other 37 million acres belong to someone else [1].
• The share varies a lot by region: western forests are about 90% Forest Service land, eastern forests about 55% [1].
• In 21 of the 154 national forests, the agency owns less than half [1].
• Stay limits and fire orders do not make an inholding public; camping on private land inside a forest needs the owner’s permission.

These figures come from the Forest Service’s Land Areas Report for fiscal year 2025, which lists the acres inside each forest’s boundary and how many of them are National Forest System land [1]. The rest is counted as other acreage: land within the boundary that is not federally owned or administered by the Forest Service [2]. A private or state parcel inside a federal boundary like this is called an inholding [5].

Why eastern forests have so much other land

Most western forests were set aside from land the government already owned. The East had little public domain left, so its forests were bought. The Weeks Act of 1911 let the government purchase forest land at the headwaters of navigable streams, and the Forest Service’s own history calls it the origin of the eastern national forests [3]. Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, established in 1916, was the first made up almost entirely of purchased private land, and by 1980 Weeks Act purchases and donations had added over 22 million acres [3].

All 15 forests with the lowest shares are in the Southern and Eastern regions, led by Uwharrie in North Carolina (23.6%), Wayne in Ohio (28.5%), Holly Springs in Mississippi (29.5%) and Hoosier in Indiana (31.6%) [1].

Why western forests have gaps too

In the West, some reserve boundaries were drawn hastily, and the Forest Homestead Act of 1906 allowed homesteading inside them on land considered mainly agricultural [3]. Congress had also given railroads large land grants, especially across the northern states from Minnesota to Washington. Some of that land stayed with the railroads: in 1980 the top of Mount St. Helens was still owned by the railroad as part of the old Northern Pacific grant [3].

In western Oregon, the 1866 Oregon and California railroad grant gave the railroad alternating square-mile sections for an average of 20 miles on each side of the line, which left a checkerboard of private, state, local and federal ownership [4]. At the other end of the range, the forests with the highest shares are Bridger in Wyoming (99.5%), Samuel R. McKelvie in Nebraska (99.4%) and Bighorn in Wyoming (99.3%) [1].

The forests we have researched

Eldorado is 78.7% Forest Service land overall [1], but on its west side near Pollock Pines, our map shows the agency owning only about two thirds of the land inside the boundary.

We computed each share as National Forest System acres divided by total acres for each proclaimed national forest in the 2025 report, with data as of September 30, 2025 [1]. Proclaimed forests do not always match how forests are managed today: Humboldt and Toiyabe, for example, are listed separately.

What it means when you pick a campsite

Forest Service rules, including stay limits and fire orders, govern acts on National Forest System land and its roads and trails [6]. They do not make an inholding public. Camping on private land inside a forest needs the owner’s permission; the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, for example, notes that Georgia law makes camping on private land illegal without it [8].

To check before you go, use the forest’s visitor map, which shows public and private land, along with its Motor Vehicle Use Map, which shows only the roads and areas open to vehicles [7]. Nomad Field Guide shows Forest Service and BLM ownership parcel by parcel as you zoom in, so the gaps inside a boundary are visible. Ownership can change, so if a spot’s status is unclear, ask the ranger district.

The Forest Service still buys some of this land back. Its fiscal year 2025 request for land acquisition from the Land and Water Conservation Fund was $123.9 million, including a $5.5 million line for critical inholdings and wilderness [9].