Rating

Public Land Nearby

Scale56-100

Graded like school, from F (56) to A+ (100). Higher is better.

About This Ranking

Goal

Highlight places with more public land open to the public within reach, from national forests and BLM land to state parks and wildlife areas, weighing land within 10 miles most.

Sources

Data behind the rating

2 sources

USGS PAD-US public access lands

Frozen August 4, 2026

Data: Protected Areas Database of the United States units of 100 acres or more that are open to the public or open with a permit or seasonal limits: national forests, parks, refuges, and monuments, BLM land, state parks, forests, and wildlife areas, and large local conservation land.
What it tells us: Shows how much of the land around a place is public, not where the legal entrances, trailheads, or roads into it are.

Natural Earth land and lakes, 1:10 million

Repository version 5.2.0-pre, June 2, 2022

Data: Public-domain outlines of land and large lakes, used so that water is left out of the land around a place.
What it tells us: Separates land from open water and large lakes at a scale that can miss small ponds and narrow shorelines.

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