The US Federal Governments owns nearly 650 million acres of land – almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States.
These are lands that are held for all Americans.
Up until now, there has been no quick & easy way to retrieve the boundaries of these properties without carrying physical maps, books, or slowly digging deep online.
Included in this app are on device (fully works offline), individually selectable & beautifully colored layers for all of the properties administered by the federal government that are more than 640 acres in size:
– Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
– US Forest Service (FS)
– National Park Service (NPS)
– BLM – National Monuments
– Army Corp of Engineers (ACOE)
– US Fish & Wildlife Service
– Bureau of Reclamation
– Tennessee Valley Authority
– Department of Defense (military bases & installations)
– Other (National Laboratories, Test Sites, etc…)
Key Benefits & Features
– Know which US agency owns and operates the land you’re on or are heading to. Use the “Layers” icon to select which agencies you want displayed to create your own custom map. (Hint, the toggles are color coded to the color each layer is displayed in.)
– Links are provided to each agency’s website within the app, so that you can further your research as to what land use rules apply for each public land type – such as permits, fees, activities allowed, and limits of stay.
– Map layers are stored on device – no internet connection required.
– Be sure to turn on the ‘Basic’ base map to see the US Public Land labels for each land area. This base map layer is also stored entirely on your device, and can be utilized if you do not have an internet connection or would like to conserve bandwidth.
– If you have an internet connection, you can utilize standard and satellite view maps as well as the base layer underneath the public land overlays.
– A boondocker’s assistant – by turning on the Satellite view map, you can better scout out trails, roads and boondock camping locations within the boundaries of the public land resources. (Please note, this is not specifically a campground locator app – but you can combine the boundary maps with satellite imagery to scout out where there are clearings and signs of dispersed campsites. For an example of how this app can help with finding boondocking locations, see: http://www.technomadia.com/2014/09/finding-magical-boondocking/)
– Quickly toggle between ‘Show’ and ‘Hide’ via the “Map” icon to more clearly see satellite images below.
– If you have GPS access on your device, click the ‘Locate Me’ icon to show your present location – know what type of land you’re on right now!
– Built in search tool locates anything on device maps supports (requires internet access) – including cities, states, zip codes, addresses and points of interest. A pin is dropped at the search location.
Now the US Public Land boundaries can be in your pocket!
Thank you to the National Atlas of the United States for providing public domain raw map data that we’ve been able to apply our proprietary rendering technology to create an interactive overlayable mapping & navigation tool. We will update our maps, when they update they theirs.
Please note, the National Atlas maps only report to the nearest 640 acres (or about a square mile). This is obviously not detailed enough to be precise around borders, or for determining where private inholdings within public lands are located. US Public Lands should only be used as an overview, and you should always confirm more precise details by consulting more detailed maps, local field offices or the websites links within the app. And we of course can make no guarantees as to the accuracy of the maps provided by the National Atlas.