overview
ERS has been a source of major land use estimates in the United States for over 50 years, and the related U.S. cropland series dates back to 1910. The major land use (MLU) series is the only consistent accounting of all major uses of public and private land in the United States. The consistent series was started in 1945, and has since been published every 5 years, coinciding with the Census of Agriculture. It contains acreage estimates of major uses by region and States for each census of agriculture year from 1945 through 1997.

Data from all 12 Major Land Use reports have been combined into a set of files showing major land uses from 1945 to 1997. Gaps in continuity (identified as "Not available") occur only in categories with no data on which to base an estimate. This is the case in Alaska and Hawaii prior to statehood in 1959-1960. Since Alaska contains such vast acreage, 50-State totals in all categories prior to 1959 may appear to change precipitously.

features
Major Uses of Land in the United States, 1997—As the latest in the Major Land Use series, which started in 1945, this report summarizes cropland, forest, pasture and range, and miscellaneous and special uses such as urban, recreational, and parkland. The annual cropland portion of the series has been consistently maintained since 1910.

Other MLU years are contained in 11 earlier reports in the MLU series (see specific bibliography and reference citations).

Land Use, Chapter 1.1, Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2000—A summary and analysis of the 1997 Major Land Use data can be found in this report, along with other data on land use issues and trends.

media and naming convention
The 16 table files in the MLU database are downloadable in both .wk1 and .xls spreadsheet format.

File names are listed and described below. Those files whose names are composed of lower case letters are subsets or components of files with names entirely composed of capital letters (that is, CROPLAND = crops + idle + croppast). The tables in each file are self-documenting and each file contains the data name in cell A1.

data files

.wk1 format .xls format

CROPLAND—Total cropland: cropland used for crops, cropland idled, and cropland used for pasture.

.wk1 format .xls format

crops—Cropland used for crops: cropland harvested, crop failure, and cultivated summer fallow. .wk1 format .xls format

idle—Cropland idled: land completely idled and lands seeded to soil improvement crops but not harvested or pastured. .wk1 format .xls format

croppast—Cropland used for pasture: land rotated between crop and pasture use or marginal cropland indefinitely used as pasture. .wk1 format .xls format

PASTURE—Grassland pasture and range: grassland and other nonforested pasture and range in farms plus estimates of open or nonforested grazing lands not in farms. Does not include cropland used for pasture (croppast) or forest land grazed. .wk1 format .xls format

FOREST—Total forest-use land: forest-use land grazed and forest-use land not grazed.

.wk1 format .xls format

grzdfrst—Forest-use land grazed: woodland grazed in farms plus estimates of forested grazing land not in farms. .wk1 format .xls format

notgrazd—Forest-use land not grazed: total forest-use land minus forest-use land grazed.
.wk1 format .xls format

SPECIAL—Total special uses: urban, rural transportation, rural parks and wildlife, defense and industrial, plus miscellaneous farm and other special uses.

.wk1 format .xls format

urban—Urban area: incorporated and unincorporated places of 2,500 population or more. .wk1 format .xls format

rrltrans—Rural transportation: highways, roads, and railroad rights-of-way, plus airport facilities. .wk1 format .xls format

parkwild—Rural parks and wildlife areas: Federal and State parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges. .wk1 format .xls format

defense—Defense and industrial areas.
.wk1 format .xls format

miscfarm—Farmsteads, farm roads, and lanes plus other miscellaneous farmland.
.wk1 format .xls format

OTHRLAND—All other land uses: unclassified uses such as marshes, swamps, bare rock, deserts, tundra plus other uses not estimated, classified, or inventoried.

.wk1 format .xls format

U.S. CROPLAND—Cropland harvested, failure, and summer fallow for the 48 states, annual, 1910-2000.

.wk1 format .xls format

glossary
More detailed definitions of major land uses and terms.

updates
The next update in the MLU series is expected to contain estimates for 2002. These estimates should appear in published form in a MLU report in the year 2006 and as an update to this ERS Data Product.

for more information, contact: Marlow Vesterby and Ken Krupa
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: November 19, 2001