Ohio Public Lands

1.2% of Ohio is federal land: 305,753 of its 26,222,080 acres (2024 data). The largest federal land manager in Ohio is the U.S. Forest Service, with 244,357 acres, 0.9% of the state. This guide covers 71 state parks, 8 National Park Service units, 1 national forest, 1 wilderness areas, and 4 national wildlife refuges.

Explore Ohio public lands by type

Ohio public land map

  • National forests
  • National parks, recreation areas and monuments (NPS)
  • National wildlife refuges (FWS)
  • State parks
  • Wilderness areas (dashed)
Land managed by (switch layers on or off)

Land ownership: USGS PAD-US 4.1, dissolved by manager and simplified (parcels under about 2 square km not shown). Unit boundaries simplified. Not for navigation or legal boundaries.

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List of all 85 places on this map71 state parks · 8 national parks, recreation areas and monuments (nps) · 1 national forests · 1 wilderness areas · 4 national wildlife refuges (fws)

State parks (71)

National parks, recreation areas and monuments (NPS) (8)

National forests (1)

Wilderness areas (1)

National wildlife refuges (FWS) (4)

Who manages Ohio's land

Agency Acres Share of Ohio
Bureau of Land Management 0 0%
U.S. Forest Service 244,357 0.9%
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 10,120 0%
National Park Service 20,497 0.1%
Department of Defense 30,779 0.1%
All federal land 305,753 1.2%

Source: Congressional Research Service, Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (R42346), 2024 data, checked 2026-09-30.

Camping on Ohio public land

State parks

3 of Ohio's state parks have developed campgrounds on record; compare them in the Ohio state parks table.

Common questions

1.2% of Ohio is federal land: 305,753 of its 26,222,080 acres (2024 data).
The largest federal land manager in Ohio is the U.S. Forest Service, with 244,357 acres, 0.9% of the state.
This guide lists 71 Ohio state parks and recreation areas, 3 of them with camping on record.

The sentences on this page are generated by software from the sourced records above, not written by hand. How this content is made.