Here’s How America Uses Its Land
There are many statistical measures that show how productive the U.S. is. Its economy is the largest in the world and grew at a rate of 4.1 percent last quarter, its fastest pace since 2014. The unemployment rate is near the lowest mark in a half century.
What can be harder to decipher is how Americans use their land to create wealth. The 48 contiguous states alone are a 1.9 billion-acre jigsaw puzzle of cities, farms, forests and pastures that Americans use to feed themselves, power their economy and extract value for business and pleasure.
Not only is a big proportion of the land home to cows and other livestock, but a huge chunk is devoted to raising feed for that livestock -and livestock in other countries. And just look at the little bits we set aside for national parks, state parks, and federal wilderness areas!
Other maps show us where the crops, the forests, the people, and the wetlands are. See a set of maps at Bloomberg that give us views from different angles on how the US uses its land.
