Major Land Uses

Overview

ERS has been a source of major land use estimates in the United States for over 50 years, and the related U.S. cropland used for crops series dates back to 1910. The Major Land Uses (MLU) series is the only consistent accounting of all major uses of public and private land in the United States. The consistent series was started in 1945, and has since been published about every 5 years, coinciding with the Census of Agriculture. The MLU series contains acreage estimates of major uses by region and States for each census of agriculture year from 1945 through 2002.

Data from all 14 Major Land Uses reports have been combined into a set of files showing major land uses from 1945 to 2002. Gaps in continuity (identified as "Not Available") occur only in categories with no data on which to base an estimate. This is the case in Alaska and Hawaii prior to statehood in 1959. Since Alaska contains such vast acreage, 50-State totals in all categories prior to 1959 may appear to change precipitously.

Features

U.S. Cropland Used For Crops—Cropland harvested, failure, and summer fallow for the 48 states, annual, 1910-2006. The series was updated December 2007.

Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2002—As the latest in the Major Land Use series, which started in 1945, this report summarizes cropland, forest, pasture and range, and miscellaneous and special uses such as urban, recreational, and parkland. The annual cropland portion of the series has been consistently maintained since 1910. Summary tables are also available.

Land Use, Chapter 1.1 in Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators—A summary and analysis of Major Land Uses data can be found in this report, along with other data on land-use issues and trends.

A map summarizes major land uses of the 48 States for 2002.

Data Files

Data are available in three presentations:

• Summary tables—A set of summary tables contain regional and State land-use data primarily for 2002, but also provide historical data on urban area and irrigated land in farms. These tables are available in PDF format, or in Excel.

• U.S. Cropland Used For Crops—Cropland harvested, failure, and summer fallow for the 48 states, annual, 1910-2006.

• Major Land Uses data series (see below)—The complete set of 16 spreadsheet files cover acreage estimates of major uses by region and States for each census of agriculture year from 1945 through 2002.
  
  File names are listed and described below. Those files whose names are composed of lower case letters are subsets or components of files with names entirely composed of capital letters (that is, CROPLAND = cropland used for crops + cropland used for pasture + cropland idled). The tables in each file are self-documenting and each file contains the data name in cell A1.

Sources

For citations for previous MLU reports and sources for the 2002 data update, see specific bibliography and reference citations.

Glossary

More detailed definitions of major land uses and terms.