Pennsylvania Public Lands

2.1% of Pennsylvania is federal land: 608,796 of its 28,804,480 acres (2024 data). The largest federal land manager in Pennsylvania is the U.S. Forest Service, with 514,183 acres, 1.8% of the state. This guide covers 118 state parks, 17 National Park Service units, 1 national forest, 2 wilderness areas, and 3 national wildlife refuges.

Explore Pennsylvania public lands by type

Pennsylvania 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 141 places on this map118 state parks · 17 national parks, recreation areas and monuments (nps) · 1 national forests · 2 wilderness areas · 3 national wildlife refuges (fws)

State parks (118)

National parks, recreation areas and monuments (NPS) (17)

National forests (1)

Wilderness areas (2)

National wildlife refuges (FWS) (3)

Who manages Pennsylvania's land

Agency Acres Share of Pennsylvania
Bureau of Land Management 0 0%
U.S. Forest Service 514,183 1.8%
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 15,897 0.1%
National Park Service 53,876 0.2%
Department of Defense 24,840 0.1%
All federal land 608,796 2.1%

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

Camping on Pennsylvania public land

State parks

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

Common questions

2.1% of Pennsylvania is federal land: 608,796 of its 28,804,480 acres (2024 data).
The largest federal land manager in Pennsylvania is the U.S. Forest Service, with 514,183 acres, 1.8% of the state.
This guide lists 118 Pennsylvania state parks and recreation areas, 17 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.