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Historically, grasslands occupied about one billion acres in the United States, roughly fifty percent of the landmass of the 48 contiguous states. The considerable preponderance of the meadows was found west of the Mississippi River. But, some indigenous grasslands were spread throughout the Midwestern and Southeastern U.S. States.
Nearly 85 percent of all grasslands in the United States are privately owned. Nowadays, most of the grasslands were converted to croplands.
Most today privately owned grasslands are in the Central Plains region within the Mississippi River and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. At pre-settlement, 64 percent of the U.S. grasslands were east of the Rocky Mountains. Grasslands west of the Rocky Mountains (approximately 332 million acres) were mostly held under federal administration. In comparison, more than 90 percent of those areas east of the Rockies (about 565 million acres) were grouped under private ownership.
Over 80 percent of the meadow and rangeland in the twenty-two western U.S. states are in operations whose owners are individual proprietorships, partnerships, or family-held corporations and are operated by persons over 45 years of age. Approximately 90 percent of the pasture and rangeland is in ranches or farms that contain six thousand or more acres and have operators who own either all or part of the land they operate.
Unfortunately, according to forecasts, the conversion of grass cover will continue. According to the National Wildlife Federation, all grasslands could be lost in as scarce as 75 years.
National Grasslands owned by the federal government are being managed to preserve these essential legacy resources. The total area of all twenty national grasslands was 1.6 million hectares or approximately 3.4 million acres. Below is the list of the most extensive national grasslands in the U.S.
