Wilderness areas are federally-owned public lands managed by the federal government through four agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service. When the National Wilderness Preservation System started in 1964, only 54 wilderness areas were included. Since then, the system has grown nearly every year to include more than 800. The time component of this service is based on the year in which the wilderness was originally designated (additions may have occurred in subsequent years). Overall, however, only about 5% of the entire United States—an area slightly larger than the state of California— is protected as wilderness. Because Alaska contains just over half of America's wilderness, only about 2.7% of the contiguous United States—an area about the size of Minnesota—is protected as wilderness. To learn more about wilderness areas, visit Wilderness Connect, the authoritative source for wilderness information online. Wilderness Connect also publishes two other map resources:An interactive wilderness map allows visitors to search for and explore all wilderness areas in the United States. Fact-filled storymaps on the benefits of wilderness illustrate how wilderness protects values including clean water, wildlife habitat, nearby recreation, cultural sites and more.

Although wilderness areas are federally-owned, some areas contain non-federal parcels within their boundaries. Non-federal lands within some wilderness areas are included as part of this feature dataset as a separate layer. Termed inholdings or edgeholdings, these lands are privately-owned or owned by local governments, state governments or Indigenous Nations. Hundreds of inholdings and edgeholdings exist across the wilderness system. Generally, however, they are small compared to the size of the wilderness itself. Since the rules and regulations that apply to wilderness areas do not apply to these non-federally-owned parcels, it is important for wilderness visitors to know their location to avoid trespassing where access is not allowed. The owners of inholdings and edgeholdings can develop these parcels (as long as developments do not affect the character of the surrounding wilderness lands) and they retain special and limited access to them, sometimes, but not always, by motorized means.

Wilderness areas are federally-owned public lands managed by the federal government through four agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service. When the National Wilderness Preservation System started in 1964, only 54 wilderness areas were included. Since then, the system has grown nearly every year to include more than 800. The time component of this service is based on the year in which the wilderness was originally designated (additions may have occurred in subsequent years). Overall, however, only about 5% of the entire United States—an area slightly larger than the state of California— is protected as wilderness. Because Alaska contains just over half of America's wilderness, only about 2.7% of the contiguous United States—an area about the size of Minnesota—is protected as wilderness. To learn more about wilderness areas, visit Wilderness Connect, the authoritative source for wilderness information online. Wilderness Connect also publishes two other map resources:An interactive wilderness map allows visitors to search for and explore all wilderness areas in the United States. Fact-filled storymaps on the benefits of wilderness illustrate how wilderness protects values including clean water, wildlife habitat, nearby recreation, cultural sites and more.

Although wilderness areas are federally-owned, some areas contain non-federal parcels within their boundaries. Non-federal lands within some wilderness areas are included as part of this feature dataset as a separate layer. Termed inholdings or edgeholdings, these lands are privately-owned or owned by local governments, state governments or Indigenous Nations. Hundreds of inholdings and edgeholdings exist across the wilderness system. Generally, however, they are small compared to the size of the wilderness itself. Since the rules and regulations that apply to wilderness areas do not apply to these non-federally-owned parcels, it is important for wilderness visitors to know their location to avoid trespassing where access is not allowed. The owners of inholdings and edgeholdings can develop these parcels (as long as developments do not affect the character of the surrounding wilderness lands) and they retain special and limited access to them, sometimes, but not always, by motorized means.

Feature Class for the BLM Wilderness Study Areas and BLM Other Related Lands data covered by the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) Data Standard. In particular, this feature class includes the polygon features representing the spatial extent and boundaries of the BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) Wilderness Study Areas. A Wilderness is a special place where the earth and its community of life are essentially undisturbed; they retain a primeval character, without permanent improvements and generally appear to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature. In 1964, Congress established the National Wilderness Preservation System and designated the first Wilderness Areas in passing the Wilderness Act. The uniquely American idea of wilderness has become an increasingly significant tool to ensure long-term protection of natural landscapes. Wilderness protects the habitat of numerous wildlife species and serves as a biodiversity bank for many species of plants and animals. Wilderness is also a source of clean water. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 directed the Bureau to inventory and study its roadless areas for wilderness characteristics. To be designated as a Wilderness Study Area, an area has to have the following characteristics: Size - roadless areas of at least 5,000 acres of public lands or of a manageable size; Naturalness - generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature; Opportunities - provides outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined types of recreation. In addition, Wilderness Study Areas often have special qualities such as ecological, geological, educational, historical, scientific and scenic values. BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) Other Related Lands are lands not in Wilderness or Wilderness Study Areas that have been determined to have wilderness character through inventory or land use planning. These lands fall into one of two categories. The first category are lands with "wilderness value and characteristics". These are inventoried areas not in Wilderness or Wilderness Study Areas that have been determined to meet the size, naturalness, and the outstanding solitude and/or the outstanding primitive and unconfined recreation criteria. The second category are "wilderness characteristic protection areas". These are former lands with "wilderness value and characteristics" where a plan decision has been made to protect them. This dataset is a subset of the official national dataset, containing features and attributes intended for public release and has been optimized for online map service performance.

Wilderness areas are federally-owned public lands managed by the federal government through four agencies, theBureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service. When the National Wilderness Preservation System started in 1964, only 54 wilderness areas were included. Since then, the system has grown nearly every year to include more than 800. The time component of this service is based on the year in which the wilderness was originally designated (additions may have occurred in subsequent years). Overall, however, only about 5% of the entire United States—an area slightly larger than the state of California— is protected as wilderness. Because Alaska contains just over half of America's wilderness, only about 2.7% of the contiguous United States—an area about the size of Minnesota—is protected as wilderness. To learn more about wilderness areas, visitWilderness Connect, the authoritative source for wilderness information online. Wilderness Connect also publishes two other map resources:Aninteractive wilderness mapallows visitors to search for and explore all wilderness areas in the United States.Fact-filledstorymaps on the benefits of wildernessillustrate how wilderness protects values including clean water, wildlife habitat, nearby recreation, cultural sites and more.Although wilderness areas are federally-owned, some areas contain non-federal parcels within their boundaries. Non-federal lands within some wilderness areas are included as part of this feature dataset as a separate layer. Termed inholdings or edgeholdings, these lands are privately-owned or owned by local governments, state governments or Indigenous Nations. Hundreds of inholdings and edgeholdings exist across the wilderness system. Generally, however, they are small compared to the size of the wilderness itself. Since the rules and regulations that apply to wilderness areas do not apply to these non-federally-owned parcels, it is important for wilderness visitors to know their location to avoid trespassing where access is not allowed. The owners of inholdings and edgeholdings can develop these parcels (as long as developments do not affect the character of the surrounding wilderness lands) and they retain special and limited access to them, sometimes, but not always, by motorized means.

Areas managed as WILDERNESSwithin Glacier National Park. This mapping was compiled in 2014, implementing NPS Director's Order 41 (2013), which provides guidelines to NPS units for delineating wilderness boundaries. The two main criteria provided by DO-41 are that boundaries 1) must be easily identifiable on the ground, and 2) standard boundary setbacks from roads, paved or unpaved, should be 100-feet either side of centerline. Included in this mapping are areas EXCLUDED from wilderness, which generally fall within 100-feet of road centerline or are part of the park's Visitor Service Zone (GMP, 1999). Additional areas categorized as 'Excluded from wilderness' include lands designated as part of the Visitor Service Zone (VSZ), documented in the GLAC Commercial Serices Plan (2004). Developed area footprints were mapped and then buffered 300-feet. Utility corridors and point locations were mapped and buffered 25-feet. Also, large lakes with existing commercial services were included in the VSZ and thus were categorized as Excluded.POTENTIAL WILDERNESS AREAS (PWA) are the 3rd map class; these lands are currently in private ownership, providing access to private ownership, or are small fragmented areas (i.e. not easily identified on the ground and difficult to manage as wilderness due to size and surrounding land uses) between areas excluded from wilderness (e.g. utility corridors and lands between utility corridors and other excluded areas).Chronology of edits:Begin edits 11/8/13 to implement DO-41. Update layer March 4, 2014 - create version 3 with the following edits - based on 3/3/14 meeting with GLAC Leadership Team (Kym Hall):1. Camas Cr patrol cabin, include 100-ft buffer of cabin + 100-ft buffer of roadway from Inside Rd.2. Bowman CG area: extend 'excluded' area from admin road to creek edge to accommodate admin road/trail (to bridge) not yet mapped. Also inlcude 100-ft buffered trail and 100-ft buffered buildings due east of bridge. 3. Kintla CG - same changes as Bowman, using standard 100-ft buffer of road/cabins4. Belly River enclave is added to the data set.-----------Update layer January 24, 2014 with these edits:1. Add Marias Pass 'excluded' area; 100-ft buffer of RR turnaround.2. Extend HQ area 'excluded' polygon to river /park bdy3. Create Dev Area footprints for Road Camp & Packer's Roost; buffer 300-ft and add to 'excluded'.----------Update layer January 13, 2014 with these edits:1. Bowman CG - add admin road missed, 2. Walton - remove exclusion area between road buffer and boundary, and 3. Swiftcurrent - include Swiftcurrent+Josephine Lakes as excluded, plus bump-out areas for boat storage and creek used to ferry supplies from Swift. Lake to Josephine Lake.---------Update layer April 15-18, 2014 with these additions/edits:1. Create developed area for Apgar Lookout; buffer 300-ft.2. Create developed area for 1913 Ranger Station (St Mary); buffer 300-ft.3. Add 2 monitoring wells in St Mary Flats (foot of lake south of GTSR); buffer 25-ft and connect to 'excluded area' polygon4. Add water source point for Many Glacier winter cabin (north of MG road near hotel jct; buffer 25-ft and add to 'excluded area' polygon5. Buffer McCarthy Homestead structures 100-ft and add to Excluded Area polygon for Inside North Fork Rd6. Buffer Ford Creek cabin structures 100-ft and add to Excluded Area polygon for Inside North Fork Rd7. Buffer Baring Crek cabin structures 100-ft and add to Excluded Area polygon Going to the Sun Rd8. Add to Excluded Area a strip of land 60-ft south of the International Boundary (per 1974 Wilderness proposal & MOU with GLAC and Int'l Boundary Comm).---------Updated layer 5/27/2014 - add approx. 2 acres to 'Excluded fro mWilderness' near the St Mary River bridge along GTSR. This sliver of land was included to utilize the river bank as a visible and distinguishable boundary in the field.

© NPS, Glacier NP GIS Program

This layer is a component of Glacier National Park.

This map service provides layers covering a variety of different datasets and themes for Glacier National Park. It is meant to be consumed by internet mapping applications and for general reference. It is for internal NPS use only. Produced November 2014.

© Denver Service Center Planning Division, IMR Geographic Resources Division, Glacier National Park

description: Shapefile Format This dataset depicts the Wilderness Areas, a component of the National Conservation Lands (otherwise known as National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS)) for the State of Colorado. The dataset can be used for small scale (1:24,000 and smaller) analysis, cartographic products, GIS display, spatial feature discovery, spatial relationships (Man Made or Natural). These data represent the polygon features that show the outside boundaries for the Wilderness Areas. These data support and assist in management decisions and planning. Please note other agency and/or private lands may exist within this ouside boundary.; abstract: Shapefile Format This dataset depicts the Wilderness Areas, a component of the National Conservation Lands (otherwise known as National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS)) for the State of Colorado. The dataset can be used for small scale (1:24,000 and smaller) analysis, cartographic products, GIS display, spatial feature discovery, spatial relationships (Man Made or Natural). These data represent the polygon features that show the outside boundaries for the Wilderness Areas. These data support and assist in management decisions and planning. Please note other agency and/or private lands may exist within this ouside boundary.

This feature class shows wilderness areas in Deschutes County. Wilderness areas are defined as: "Undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character, without permanent human habitation or improvements. It is protected and managed to preserve its natural condition. Wilderness Areas are designated by Congress."

The feature class ParkOutline is a statewide summary of all park, preserve, monument and current wilderness boundaries. Data used in preparation of the maps were obtained from USGS 1:250,000 topographic maps depicting the ANILCA boundaries compiled in 1980 by the Interior Alaska Planning Group. Data was then transferred to 1:63,360 USGS topographic mylar base maps and reviewed for accuracy by National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office, Land Resources Program Center. This feature class is derived from the Alaska National Park Boundary feature class (ParkBnd). In ArcCatalog the DISSOLVE function in ArcToolbox is run on the ParkBnd feature class to remove internal administrative boundaries found in that feature class. This action thereby creates this simplified park outline coverage to be used in general map displays.

A parcel of Forest Service land congressionally designated as wilderness such as National Wilderness Area. Click this link for full metadata description: Metadata

This web map created by the Colorado Governor's Office of Information Technology GIS team, serves as a basemap specific to the state of Colorado. The basemap includes general layers such as counties, municipalities, roads, waterbodies, state parks, national forests, national wilderness areas, and trails.Layers:Layer descriptions and sources can be found below. Layers have been modified to only represent features within Colorado and are not up to date. Layers last updated February 23, 2023. Colorado State Extent: Description: “This layer provides generalized boundaries for the 50 States and the District of Columbia.” Notes: This layer was filtered to only include the State of ColoradoSource: Esri Living Atlas USA States Generalized Boundaries Feature LayerState Wildlife Areas:Description: “This data was created by the CPW GIS Unit. Property boundaries are created by dissolving CDOWParcels by the property name, and property type and appending State Park boundaries designated as having public access. All parcel data correspond to legal transactions made by the CPW Real Estate Unit. The boundaries of the CDOW Parcels were digitized using metes and bounds, BLM's GCDB dataset, the PLSS dataset (where the GCDB dataset was unavailable) and using existing digital data on the boundaries.” Notes: The state wildlife areas layer in this basemap is filtered from the CPW Managed Properties (public access only) layer from this feature layer hosted in ArcGIS Online Source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife CPW Admin Data Feature LayerMunicipal Boundaries:Description: "Boundaries data from the State Demography Office of Colorado Municipalities provided by the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA)"Source: Colorado Information Marketplace Municipal Boundaries in ColoradoCounties:Description: “This layer presents the USA 2020 Census County (or County Equivalent) boundaries of the United States in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is updated annually as County (or County Equivalent) boundaries change. The geography is sources from US Census Bureau 2020 TIGER FGDB (National Sub-State) and edited using TIGER Hydrology to add a detailed coastline for cartographic purposes. Geography last updated May 2022.” Notes: This layer was filtered to only include counties in the State of ColoradoSource: Esri USA Census Counties Feature LayerInterstates:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing Highways Notes: Interstates are filtered by route sign from this CDOT Highways layer Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Highways REST EndpointU.S. Highways:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing Highways Notes: U.S. Highways are filtered by route sign from this CDOT Highways layer Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Highways REST EndpointState Highways:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing Highways Notes: State Highways are filtered by route sign from this CDOT Highways layer Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Highways REST EndpointMajor Roads:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing major roads Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Major Roads REST EndpointLocal Roads:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing local roads Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Local Roads REST EndpointRail Lines:Description: Authoritative data from the Colorado Department of Transportation representing rail lines Source: Colorado Department of Transportation Rail Lines REST EndpointCOTREX Trails:Description: “The Colorado Trail System, now titled the Colorado Trail Explorer (COTREX), endeavors to map every trail in the state of Colorado. Currently their are nearly 40,000 miles of trails mapped. Trails come from a variety of sources (USFS, BLM, local parks & recreation departments, local governments). Responsibility for accuracy of the data rests with the source.These data were last updated on 2/5/2019” Source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife CPW Admin Data Feature LayerNHD Waterbodies:Description: “The National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDplus) maps the lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and other surface waters of the United States. Created by the US EPA Office of Water and the US Geological Survey, the NHDPlus provides mean annual and monthly flow estimates for rivers and streams. Additional attributes provide connections between features facilitating complicated analyses.”Notes: This layer was filtered to only include waterbodies in the State of ColoradoSource: National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2.1 Feature LayerNHD Flowlines:Description: “The National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDplus) maps the lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and other surface waters of the United States. Created by the US EPA Office of Water and the US Geological Survey, the NHDPlus provides mean annual and monthly flow estimates for rivers and streams. Additional attributes provide connections between features facilitating complicated analyses.”Notes: This layer was filtered to only include flowline features in the State of ColoradoSource: National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2.1 Feature LayerState Parks:Description: “This data was created by the CPW GIS Unit. Property boundaries are created by dissolving CDOWParcels by the property name, and property type and appending State Park boundaries designated as having public access. All parcel data correspond to legal transactions made by the CPW Real Estate Unit. The boundaries of the CDOW Parcels were digitized using metes and bounds, BLM's GCDB dataset, the PLSS dataset (where the GCDB dataset was unavailable) and using existing digital data on the boundaries.” Notes: The state parks layer in this basemap is filtered from the CPW Managed Properties (public access only) layer from this feature layer Source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife CPW Admin Data Feature LayerDenver Parks:Description: "This dataset should be used as a reference to locate parks, golf courses, and recreation centers managed by the Department of Parks and Recreation in the City and County of Denver. Data is based on parcel ownership and does not include other areas maintained by the department such as medians and parkways. The data should be used for planning and design purposes and cartographic purposes only."Source: City and County of Denver Parks REST EndpointNational Wilderness Areas:Description: “A parcel of Forest Service land congressionally designated as wilderness such as National Wilderness Area.”Notes: This layer was filtered to only include National Wilderness Areas in the State of ColoradoSource: United States Department of Agriculture National Wilderness Areas REST EndpointNational Forests: Description: “A depiction of the boundaries encompassing the National Forest System (NFS) lands within the original proclaimed National Forests, along with subsequent Executive Orders, Proclamations, Public Laws, Public Land Orders, Secretary of Agriculture Orders, and Secretary of Interior Orders creating modifications thereto, along with lands added to the NFS which have taken on the status of 'reserved from the public domain' under the General Exchange Act. The following area types are included: National Forest, Experimental Area, Experimental Forest, Experimental Range, Land Utilization Project, National Grassland, Purchase Unit, and Special Management Area.”Notes: This layer was filtered to only include National Forests in the State of ColoradoSource: United States Department of Agriculture Original Proclaimed National Forests REST Endpoint

This arc feature class represents the spatial extent and boundaries of BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) Wilderness Areas in Utah. New features added pursuant to: S. 47: John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, Public Law 116-9, March 12, 2019. Cedar Mtn Wilderness in Tooele Co. may not show incorporation of new lands acquired in the Skull Valley Land Exchange. Wilderness boundaries in Emery Co. have numerous alignment issues to existing routes. Technical boundary road alignments corrections previously identified will be adjusted to represent Congressional intent to not cause public confusion or conflict.

This dataset depicts the BLM Wilderness Areas, a component of the National Conservation Lands (otherwise known as National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) for the State of Colorado. The dataset can be used for small scale (1:24,000 and smaller) analysis, cartographic products, GIS display, spatial feature discovery, spatial relationships (Man Made or Natural). These data represent the polygon features that show the outside boundaries for the Wilderness Areas. These data support and assist in management decisions and planning. Please note other agency and/or private lands may exist within this outside boundary.

WLD_CHAR_ARC: This theme represents the results of an inventory of wilderness characteristics found, or not found, on BLM lands in Oregon and Washington. This data set shows the polygons for areas found to possess wilderness characteristics, plus boundary lines for those areas that were intensively inventoried and found to not meet minimum wilderness criteria. All BLM lands outside of designated Wilderness Areas and Wilderness Study Areas are periodically evaluated for wilderness characteristics based on meeting minimum criteria for size, naturalness and outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. Where such inventories have been updated, those BLM lands not depicted by polygons were deemed to clearly lack wilderness characteristics in an initial scan of size and roadlessness to determine areas warranting more intensive inventory.

This dataset depicts the BLM Wilderness Areas, a component of the National Conservation Lands (otherwise known as National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) for the State of Colorado. The dataset can be used for small scale (1:24,000 and smaller) analysis, cartographic products, GIS display, spatial feature discovery, spatial relationships (Man Made or Natural). These data represent the polygon features that show the outside boundaries for the Wilderness Areas. These data support and assist in management decisions and planning. Please note other agency and/or private lands may exist within this outside boundary.

description: (Link to Metadata) Revising the 2006 Green Mountain National Forest's Land and Resource Management Plan included a requirement to evaluate opportunities for additional wilderness on the Forest. This was accomplished through an inventory and evaluation of roadless areas. The inventory and evaluation was then used to develop and evaluate alternatives for managing National Forest System Land. The evaluation of alternatives shows the tradeoffs associated with potential designation of new wilderness areas. Finally, the revised Land and Resource Management Plan included recommendations to Congress for additional wilderness. Congress will then consider whether or not to introduce legislation proposing additional wilderness designation. (Such legislation is independent of the Plan Revision process, however, and could occur at any time.) This dataset has been edmatched to the Forest Boundary (from the Automated Land Program ALP dataset) in March 2009.; abstract: (Link to Metadata) Revising the 2006 Green Mountain National Forest's Land and Resource Management Plan included a requirement to evaluate opportunities for additional wilderness on the Forest. This was accomplished through an inventory and evaluation of roadless areas. The inventory and evaluation was then used to develop and evaluate alternatives for managing National Forest System Land. The evaluation of alternatives shows the tradeoffs associated with potential designation of new wilderness areas. Finally, the revised Land and Resource Management Plan included recommendations to Congress for additional wilderness. Congress will then consider whether or not to introduce legislation proposing additional wilderness designation. (Such legislation is independent of the Plan Revision process, however, and could occur at any time.) This dataset has been edmatched to the Forest Boundary (from the Automated Land Program ALP dataset) in March 2009.

This web map shows the wilderness and hunt area boundaries in Wrangell-St. Elias NP&P (WRST). The web map is displayed in the interactive web app WRST Hunt Area Boundaries, which is also accessible from the WRST NPS website.

The layers within this feature service show the spatial extent and boundaries of the BLM National Conservation Lands (NCL) Wilderness Study Areas in Utah. WSAs edited pursuant to: S. 47: John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act Public Law 116-9, March 12, 2019. Data within these services are a live copy of BLM Utah's enterprise production environment. Quality control is conducted annually.Complete metadata for these data sets can be found at:BLM UT Wilderness Study Areas (Arc)BLM UT Wilderness Study Areas (Polygon)

This data publication contains shapefiles for the boundary, roads, trails, management units, and permanent sample plot locations on the Penobscot Experimental Forest (PEF) in Bradley and Eddington, Maine, USA. Also contained within this publication are the locations of the following long-term United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service experiments on the PEF: Compartment Management Study (CMS; Silviculture Effects on Composition, Structure, and Growth), Management Intensity Demonstration (MID), Auxiliary Selection Cutting Study (ASCS), Provenance Planting Study (PROVENANCE), Beech Bark Disease Monitoring Study (BEECH), Logging Methods Study (LOGGING), Biomass Harvesting and Prescribed Burning Study (BIOMASS), Northern White-Cedar Silviculture Study (CEDAR), Cutover Mixedwood Stands Study (REHAB), and the Precommercial Thinning x Fertilization Study (STUDY 58). University of Maine management units and permanent sample plot locations on the PEF are not included in this publication.These data can be used for mapping or spatial analysis of vegetation and site data collected in long-term experiments at the Penobscot Experimental Forest.This data publication is a second edition. The first edition was published in 2014 (Rogers et al. 2014; https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2014-0008). This second edition, published on 06/25/2020, includes an update to the original shapefiles provided in the first edition with some corrections and modifications to maintain consistency across the files. An additional shapefile is included that provides the location of other long-term USDA Forest Service experiments on the PEF.

Original metadata date was 06/18/2020. On 07/13/2020 the PEF_PlotLocations_May2020 shapefile was edited as follows: locations of inactive permanent sample plots in MU 21 were added, the attributes Radius_FT, Radius_M, and Intensive were added to provide information about permanent sample plot characteristics in all MUs, and some data were converted from numeric to text. The PEF_MUs_June2020 shapefile was also edited, with two out areas added in MU 3 and acres and hectares recalculated for that MU. Finally, new versions of the supplemental files FullPEF and Database Changes were provided to include the revisions described above. The metadata was updated to reflect these changes.

Important Note: This item is in mature support as of September 2023 and will be retired in December 2025. A new version of this item is available for your use. Esri recommends updating your maps and apps to use the new version.

The USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) is the official inventory of public parks and other protected open space.This layer displays federal protected areas from the Protected Areas Database of the United States version 3.0 classified by GAP Status Code protection level and Manager Type.PAD-US is published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS), Gap Analysis Project (GAP). GAP produces data and tools that help meet critical national challenges such as biodiversity conservation, recreation, public health, climate change adaptation, and infrastructure investment. See the GAP webpage for more information about GAP and other GAP data including species and land cover.In the United States, areas that are protected from development and managed for biodiversity conservation include Wilderness Areas, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and Wild & Scenic Rivers. Understanding the geographic distribution of these protected areas and their level of protection is an important part of landscape-scale planning. Dataset SummaryPhenomenon Mapped: This filtered layer view displays federal lands symbolized by the GAP status code field.Coordinate System: Web Mercator Auxiliary SphereExtent: 50 United States plus Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and other Pacific Ocean IslandsVisible Scale: 1:1,000,000 and largerSource: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS), Gap Analysis Project (GAP) PAD-US version 3.0Publication Date: July 2022Attributes included in this layer are: CategoryOwner TypeOwner NameLocal OwnerManager TypeManager NameLocal ManagerDesignation TypeLocal DesignationUnit NameLocal NameSourcePublic AccessGAP Status - Status 1, 2, 3 or 4GAP Status DescriptionInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Description - I: Strict Nature Reserve, II: National Park, III: Natural Monument or Feature, IV: Habitat/Species Management Area, V: Protected Landscape/Seascape, VI: Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources, Other conservation area, UnassignedDate of EstablishmentThe source data for this layer are available here. What can you do with this Feature Layer?Feature layers work throughout the ArcGIS system. Generally your work flow with feature layers will begin in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Pro. Below are just a few of the things you can do with a feature service in Online and Pro.ArcGIS OnlineAdd this layer to a map in the map viewer. The layer is limited to scales of approximately 1:1,000,000 or larger but a vector tile layer created from the same data can be used at smaller scales to produce a webmap that displays across the full range of scales. The layer or a map containing it can be used in an application.Change the layer’s transparency and set its visibility rangeOpen the layer’s attribute table and make selections and apply filters. Selections made in the map or table are reflected in the other. Center on selection allows you to zoom to features selected in the map or table and show selected records allows you to view the selected records in the table.Change the layer’s style and filter the data. For example, you could set a filter for Gap Status Code = 3 to create a map of only the GAP Status 3 areas.Add labels and set their propertiesCustomize the pop-upArcGIS ProAdd this layer to a 2d or 3d map. The same scale limit as Online applies in ProUse as an input to geoprocessing. For example, copy features allows you to select then export portions of the data to a new feature class. Note that many features in the PAD-US database overlap. For example wilderness area designations overlap US Forest Service and other federal lands. Any analysis should take this into consideration. An imagery layer created from the same data set can be used for geoprocessing analysis with larger extents and eliminates some of the complications arising from overlapping polygons.Change the symbology and the attribute field used to symbolize the dataOpen table and make interactive selections with the mapModify the pop-upsApply Definition Queries to create sub-sets of the layerThis layer is part of the Living Atlas of the World that provides an easy way to explore the landscape layers and many other beautiful and authoritative maps on hundreds of topics.