Welcome to the Gap Analysis Program (GAP) Protected Areas Viewer
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is a national geodatabase, developed by USGS GAP, that represents public land ownership and conservation lands, including voluntarily provided privately protected areas, for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,the Pacific and US Virgin Islands. The lands included in PAD-US are assigned conservation status codes that both denote the level of biodiversity preservation and indicate other natural, recreational and cultural uses.
Many legitimate overlaps exist in the PAD-US geodatabase (e.g. multiple Marine Protected Areas designations, Wilderness Areas over National Forests or National Parks). The viewer cannot identify more than one feature at a time. Refer to the geodatabase to identify all features. GAP has developed files without overlaps for analyses. Ask the PAD-US Coordinator for assistance with your specific project needs.
