CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: The U.S. is enormous. Despite an unusually wet spring followed by an unusually cool June, America’s corn farmers planted even more than they did last year. Most of the top landowners in the U.S. are cattle ranchers and oil barons. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre. But it was quite striking to see this massive chunk of the U.S. designated as forestland, and about 2% of that goes away and then comes back every year (laughter) - gets replanted. In France, the acre (spelled exactly the same as in English) was used only in Normandy, but its value varied greatly across Normandy, ranging from 3,632 to 9,725 square metres, with 8,172 square metres being the most frequent value. 4. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, the United States and five countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. 31 million acres of farmland lost to development, in total, between 1992 and 2012. The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. Downloads. These include Antigua and Barbuda,[11] American Samoa,[12] The Bahamas,[13] Belize,[14] the British Virgin Islands,[15] the Cayman Islands,[16] Dominica,[17] the Falkland Islands,[18] Grenada,[19] Ghana,[20] Guam,[21] the Northern Mariana Islands,[22] Jamaica,[23] Montserrat,[24] Samoa,[25] Saint Lucia,[26] St. Helena,[27] St. Kitts and Nevis,[28] St. Vincent and the Grenadines,[29] Turks and Caicos,[30] the United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands. There are 640 acres to a square mile. The U.S. has all of this land, and it's been such an amazing resource for the country and for the economy. One recognised symbol for the acre is ac,[1] but the word "acre" is also used as the symbol.[2]. Some states, however, had relatively large shares of organic farmland. In the United States, farmland was typically divided as such, and the phrase "the back 40" would refer to the 40-acre parcel to the back of the farm. Builder's acre – In US construction and real estate development, an area of 40,000 square feet (200 x 200 ft. square). An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre to the depth of one foot. These data are used to develop a consistent set of national estimates that provide insights into how land uses change over time. A square enclosing one acre is approximately 69.57 yards, or 208 feet 9 inches (63.61 metres), on a side. Thus, there are 2.43 billion acres in the USA. Cropland is about a fifth of the U.S. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. [5] The US authorities decided that, while the refined definition would apply nationally in all other respects, the US survey foot (and thus the survey acre) would continue 'until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust [it]'. Many other agencies administer the remaining federal acreage. 2018 Crop Year. She's a data journalist from Bloomberg News. Also in the box - the fries. Simplot Family - 82,500 farmland acres. Weather Santa Ana winds will continue today into Thursday across southern California with dry and windy conditions also across portions of the Southwest and southern High Plains. The U.S. is a big place, nearly 1.9 billion acres. The U.S. is a big place, nearly 1.9 billion acres. Before the enactment of the metric system, many countries in Europe used their own official acres. [32] In Sri Lanka, the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common. But that still leaves us with about 700 million acres. Learn more about the history of forestry and the changes in forested acres in the United States. And that's a combination of unprotected forestland, which means that it's not a part of a national park or state park, and about 14% was owned by corporations. [7], In October 2019, U.S. National Geodetic Survey and National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to end the "temporary" continuance of the US survey foot, mile and acre units (as permitted by their 1959 decision, above), with effect from the end of 2022. In western Canada and the western United States, divisions of land area were typically based on the square mile, and fractions thereof. Presidential Christmas Trees. All rights reserved. Areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for the different definitions to be detectable. Im sure you could never know how many in actuallity since many are probably abandoned and overgrown or forgotten family burial sites. acres in the United States (as of September 30, 2017), consisting of military bases, training ranges, and more. This statistic shows the total farmland area in the United States from 2000 to 2019. This article takes a look at the latter; specifically the four major deserts of the southwestern US. Give every person one acre, and you’d cover about 13% of the USA. What was the biggest use of land in the U.S.? This article is about the unit of area measure. The Food Network star’s family reportedly owns 433,000 acres of land, making her the 23rd largest land owner in the country. Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia from NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator, look at … VANEK SMITH: Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR News. Within this large area, the country is divided into several environments, from snow-capped mountains to hot, sandy deserts. STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: And this got us thinking. Alaska accounts for more than 17% of the total acres in the United States. And then we get to a relatively small category, which is urban areas. As a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape; any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre. In Canada, the Paris arpent used in Quebec before the metric system was adopted is sometimes called "French acre" in English, even though the Paris arpent and the Normandy acre were two very different units of area in ancient France (the Paris arpent became the unit of area of French Canada, whereas the Normandy acre was never used in French Canada). The United States is home to over 318 million people and 2.27 billion acres of land. The USDA reported that farmers intended to plant 89 million acres of soybeans and 88 million acres of corn in 2018. Mojave Desert The landscape of the Mojave Desert. And Cardiff, I will present you with the object that I think best represents how we use land in the U.S. LEATHERBY: Forestland. In the United States both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but they differ by only two parts per million, see below. One acre equals ​1⁄640 (0.0015625) square mile, 4,840 square yards, 43,560 square feet,[2] or about 4,047 square metres (0.4047 hectares) (see below). VANEK SMITH: What was the second biggest use of land in the U.S.? The land area of the lower 48 states is approximately 1.9 billion acres. A total of almost 4 million hectares (10 million acres) of timber is harvested each year, but most of that timber regenerates and remains classified as forested land, albeit at a … The United States covers nearly 3.8 million square miles. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, the United States and five countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. OK, so the main events of the Happy Meal is of course the beef burger. Based upon the International yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The co-hosts of NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator, Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia, use a familiar fast-food meal to answer that question. How many acres a day is the United States losing to land development? About 41% was used for either grazing or to grow food for livestock - was, really, pretty surprising to us. 109,000 cemeteries. [a] As detailed in the box on the right, an acre was roughly the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day.[43]. How exactly are we using this resource? Most of the Canadian Prairie Provinces and the US Midwest are on square-mile grids for surveying purposes. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872 square metres; its exact value (.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px;white-space:nowrap}4046+13,525,426/15,499,969 m2) is based on an inch defined by 1 metre = 39.37 inches exactly, as established by the Mendenhall Order of 1922. [10], The acre is commonly used in a number of current and former Commonwealth countries by custom, and in a few it continues as a statute measure. ack Simplot (1909-2008) was a farmer’s farmer. In Germany there were many variants of the Acker, differing between the German states: Statutory values for the acre were enacted in England, and subsequently the United Kingdom, by acts of: Historically, the size of farms and landed estates in the United Kingdom was usually expressed in acres (or acres, roods, and perches), even if the number of acres was so large that it might conveniently have been expressed in square miles. A million acres of potatoes are grown in the U.S. 2018 acreage data as of January 28, 2019 (ZIP, 19 MB, December 03, 2018) [35] The measure is still used to communicate with the public,[37] and informally (non-contract) by the farming and property industries.[38][39][40]. Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia from NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator, look at how all that land is divvied up. LEATHERBY: That's by far the fastest growing. To date, 57,480 wildfires have burned more than 10.3 million acres across the United States. The US authorities decided that, while the refined definition would apply nationally in all other respects, the US survey foot(and thus the survey acre) would continue 'until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust [it]'. In 1967, … The acre is a statute measure in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in almost all countries of the former British Empire: in most it is lawful to "use for trade" if given as supplementary information and is not used for land registration. In 2018, the average farm size reached 443 acres, up from 418 acres in 2007. In most U.S. states, there could be more lawn than any single irrigated crop. To be more exact, one acre is 90.75% of a 100-yd-long by 53.33-yd-wide American football field (without the end zone). For many Americans, especially people living in Western states such as California, fires in recent years have felt worse than they can remember. In a 2005 NASA-sponsored study, it was estimated that the area covered by lawns in the United States to be about 128,000 square kilometres (49,000 sq mi), making it the nation's largest irrigated crop by area. That is the number recognized by the National Geological Survey. The full field, including the end zones, covers about 1.32 acres (0.53 ha). If the square mile is divided into quarters, each quarter has a side length of ​1⁄2 mile (880 yards) and is ​1⁄4 square mile in area, or 160 acres. The USA is 3,797,000 square miles. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. By inference, an "international acre" may be calculated as exactly 4,046.8564224 square me… It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, ​1⁄640 of a square mile, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m2, or about 40% of a hectare. lands in the United States is constantly changing. “The Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond is one of the biggest landowners in the United States according to a new report. Traditionally, in the Middle Ages, an acre was defined as the area of land that could be ploughed in one day by a yoke of oxen.[3]. Is the paper that the Happy Meal box is how many acres is the united states out of military bases training... I want to speak with Lauren Leatherby know how many in actuallity since many are probably abandoned and overgrown forgotten. Than Texas, California & Montana combined this text may not be its. 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