what is the largest national forest in the united states
List of U.S. National Forests There is at least one National Forest in all but ten states: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island (although Kansas and North Dakota have national grasslands). In addition, Puerto Rico contains El Yunque National Forest. Alaska has the most national forest land with 21.9 million acres (8.9 million ha), followed by California (20.8 million acres, 8.4 million ha) and Idaho (20.4 million acres, 8.3 million ha). Idaho also has the greatest percent of its land in national forests with 38.2%, followed by Oregon with 24.7% and Colorado with 20.9%. On maps, national forests in the west generally show the true extent of their area, but those in the east often only show purchase districts, within which usually only a minority of the land is owned by the Forest Service.[1]
List of national parks of the United States Twenty-seven states have national parks, as do the territories of American Samoa and the United States Virgin Islands. California has the most (nine), followed by Alaska (eight), Utah (five), and Colorado (four). The largest national park is Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska: at over 8 million acres (32,375 km2), it is larger than each of the nine smallest states. The next three largest parks are also in Alaska. The smallest park is Hot Springs, Arkansas, at less than 6 thousand acres (24 km2). The total area protected by national parks is approximately 52.2 million acres (211,000 km2), for an average of 885 thousand acres (3,580 km2) but a median of only 236 thousand acres (960 km2) at Mount Rainier, the 30th largest park.[4] The most-visited national park is Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, with over 11.3 million visitors in 2016, followed by Arizona's Grand Canyon, with nearly 6 million. In contrast, only 10,047 people visited the remote Gates of the Arctic in Alaska in the same year.[5]