Open data, CC0

Refuges, wilderness areas, national forests and BLM conservation lands

Name: Wilderness Atlas: Refuges, wilderness areas, national forests and BLM conservation lands
Creator: Wilderness Atlas
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

One row per national wildlife refuge, wilderness area, national forest or grassland, and BLM national monument or national conservation area in the United States. Each row carries the managing agency, the states the boundary touches, acreage, the designation year where the source records one, a point inside the boundary, the official page and the Wikipedia article where one matched, the count of federal campgrounds nearby, the count of Forest Service recreation sites inside, and a ground brightness reading.

Download public_lands.csv1,523 rows · data refreshed September 17, 2026 · rebuilt nightly

Columns

slug: The key used in this site’s URLs. For national forests it is the Forest Service organization code, for everything else it is the name in lower case with hyphens
type: One of refuges, wilderness, forests, blm
name: Name as the managing agency records it. Refuge names are converted from the all-capitals form in the FWS layer
designation: National Wildlife Refuge, Wilderness, National Forest, National Grassland, National Monument, National Conservation Area or the other BLM designations
agency: Managing agency codes, slash separated when a wilderness is split between agencies (FWS, FS, BLM, NPS)
states: Two-letter state codes, slash separated. Wilderness states come from the Wilderness Connect layer; the rest are computed by intersecting the boundary with Census state polygons and keeping states that hold at least one percent of the area
acres: Wilderness Connect acreage for wilderness areas and the Forest Service gis_acres field for forests. Refuge and BLM acreage is the geodesic area of the published boundary polygon and can differ from the agency’s official figure
designated: Year of designation, wilderness areas only; blank elsewhere
lat: Latitude of the boundary centroid in WGS84, moved to a point inside the boundary when the centroid falls outside it
lon: Longitude of the same point
official_url: Wilderness Connect page, fws.gov refuge page, fs.usda.gov forest page, or a search link on the agency site when no page could be confirmed
official_url_verified: True when the official page answered 200 to a request during the build
wikipedia_url: Wikipedia article matched by title, blank when the top search result did not contain the entity name
campgrounds_within_10mi: Federal campgrounds inside the boundary or within ten miles of it, counted from the Campsite Atlas index
campgrounds_inside: Federal campgrounds whose point falls inside the boundary
usfs_rec_sites: Forest Service recreation sites (trailheads, picnic areas, campgrounds, cabins and the rest) inside the forest or wilderness, from the EDW Recreation Opportunities layer
lp: Ground brightness at the centroid, 0 to 255, a 5 by 5 pixel mean of NASA Black Marble at zoom 6. Lower is darker

The first 8 rows

slug	type	name	designation	agency	states	acres	lat	lon	official_url	official_url_verified	wikipedia_url	campgrounds_within_10mi	lp
yukon-delta-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	AK	20289051	61.2746	-163.3049	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/yukon-delta	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukon_Delta_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	14
alaska-maritime-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	AK	4554069	54.7216	-164.0402	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alaska-maritime	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Maritime_National_Wildlife_Refuge	7	28
chincoteague-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	VA/MD	12338	37.8999	-75.3697	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/chincoteague	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chincoteague_National_Wildlife_Refuge	1	38
agassiz-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	MN	61880	48.3453	-95.9459	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/agassiz	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agassiz_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	11
alamosa-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	CO	12065	37.4211	-105.7757	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alamosa	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamosa_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	25
alaska-peninsula-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	AK	3526318	57.3539	-156.9977	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alaska-peninsula	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Peninsula_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	18
alligator-river-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	NC	153637	35.7727	-75.8349	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alligator-river	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator_River_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	10
amagansett-national-wildlife-refuge	refuges	Amagansett National Wildlife Refuge	National Wildlife Refuge	FWS	NY	40	40.9692	-72.1278	https://www.fws.gov/refuge/amagansett	True	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagansett_National_Wildlife_Refuge	0	46

Source, license and citation

Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge boundaries, Wilderness Connect (University of Montana and the four wilderness agencies), U.S. Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse, Bureau of Land Management National Landscape Conservation System layer, Campsite Atlas, NASA Black Marble. The file is regenerated by the nightly pipeline that rebuilds this site, so it is never older than the pages that cite it. Method notes are on the methodology page.

License: CC0 1.0. Use it for anything, no permission or attribution needed. A link back helps other people find the source.

Suggested citation: "Wilderness Atlas open data, Refuges, wilderness areas, national forests and BLM conservation lands (September 17, 2026 snapshot), derived from FWS, Forest Service, BLM and Wilderness Connect boundary data, wildernessatlas.com/data/public_lands/."

Other files: Centroids as GeoJSON