The Surprising Truth About America’s Biggest Landowners

The U.S. covers about 2.26 billion acres—60% of that (1.3 billion acres) is privately held by wealthy individuals and corporations. The bulk of that land is made up of farms and ranches, and the rest is mostly forests.

U.S. farmland is valuable. As of 2024, the average value of farm real estate in the U.S. hit $4,170 an acre, more than double what it was in 2007.

“Farmland is more than a business asset for most families in agriculture. Often, farmland is a tangible symbol of legacy, purpose, and stewardship in addition to a strategy for growing the business,” says Natalina Sents Bausch, digital director at Successful Farming.

The Land Report analyzes records and transactions and releases a report of the top 100 landowners in the U.S. Among the list is Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates, who owns the most farmland in the U.S., with over 260,000 acres in private agricultural land. Also on the list is Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, who owns 420,000 acres of land, including the 165,000-acre Corn Ranch in Far West Texas, which serves as the launch site for Bezos’ Blue Origin rockets.

While Gates and Bezos are relatively recognizable, the top 10 landowners in the U.S. are individuals most people have likely not heard of. Some families have owned agricultural land and corporations for generations, dating back over 100 years.

So, who are the people, corporations, and foreign countries behind most of the land in the U.S.?

1. Emmerson Family: 2.4 Million Acres

Red Emmerson and his family are the largest landowners in the U.S., with 2.4 million acres in timberland across California, Oregon, and Washington. The Emmersons manage the land they own through their company, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), which is one of the largest producers of lumber, renewable energy, windows, and millwork in the country.

The Emmersons became the nation’s largest landowners in 2021, when they acquired 175,000 acres in Oregon from Seneca Timber Company, surpassing Liberty Media chairman John Malone‘s 2.2 million acres.

2. John Malone: 2.2 Million Acres

Media mogul and telecomm giant John Malone is the second-largest landowner in the U.S., with 2.2 million acres across Wyoming, New Mexico, Florida, and Colorado.

Malone is the board chair at Liberty Media Corporation and the company’s largest shareholder, with a market cap of about $22 billion (as of June 2025). Malone was the CEO of a media company, Tele Communications, Inc., which he sold to AT&T for about $50 billion in 1999.

His Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation partners with various organizations, such as the Land Institute, on initiatives focused on sustainability and conservation.

3. Ted Turner: 2 Million Acres

Ted Turner, the media billionaire who founded television conglomerate Turner Broadcasting System and CNN, is third on the list of the nation’s largest landowners, with 2 million acres in personal and ranch land. Turner ranches across Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, and South Dakota, focused on ecotourism, managing bison, and hunting and fishing.

Turner owns 1.1 million acres in New Mexico, including a host of luxury hospitality properties, including Vermejo Park Ranch, which is the largest ranch in the U.S.

4. Stan Kroenke: 1.8 Million Acres

Real estate and sports mogul Stan Kroenke is the fourth largest landowner in the U.S., with about 1.8 million acres across Texas, Wyoming, and Nevada. Kroenke’s Waggoner Ranch in Texas is one of the largest ranches in the U.S., at 510,000 acres. Founded in 1849, Waggoner is still a working ranch with oil production and cattle.

Through his sports empire, Kroenke owns the NFL team LA Rams, the NBA team Denver Nuggets, and the U.K. soccer club Arsenal, among others.

5. Reed Family: 1.7 Million Acres

The Reed Family is the fifth-largest landowner in the U.S., with a total of 1.7 million acres owned across California, Oregon, Washington, and Montana.

The Reed family has owned and managed Seattle-based forest management company Green Diamond Resource Company for more than 130 years. Green Diamond produces about 2 million board feet of logs annually and is focused on sustainable forest management, including delivering logs to local mills and forest carbon offsets.

6. Irving Family: 1.3 Million Acres

The Irving family owns 1.3 million acres of timberland in Maine and is the state’s largest private landowner. The family’s forest products business, J.D. Irving Limited, is over 140 years old and has timberland holdings in New Brunswick, Canada, and Maine. The family’s Irving Woodlands organization has planted more than 1 billion trees in Canada and the U.S.

7. Buck Family: 1.2 Million Acres

The Buck family owns 1.2 million acres of timberland in Maine. The holdings once belonged to late billionaire and nuclear physicist, Peter Buck, who co-founded the popular sandwich chain, Subway. Buck’s wealth and land are thanks to his $1,000 investment in 1965 in a sandwich shop owned by his friend’s son, which later turned into Subway, one of the world’s largest chain restaurants.

8. Singleton Family: 1.1 Million Acres

The family of Henry Singleton, an entrepreneur and electrical engineer, owns 1.1 million acres in New Mexico. Singleton, who died in 1999, was the co-founder of industrial conglomerate Teledyne in 1960.

He later bought the historic 81,000-acre San Cristobal Ranch in New Mexico and eventually expanded his land holdings to over one million acres, mostly through acquiring former Spanish land grants. Singleton Ranches has land across New Mexico and California, and has cattle and horse operations.

9. King Ranch Heirs: 911k Acres

The King Ranch heirs own 911,215 acres across Texas and Florida. Founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King primarily for cotton cultivation, King Ranch is still one of the largest cotton producers in the U.S. today. Its Florida operation produces sugar cane, sod, rice, and sweet corn and is the largest producer of orange juice in the U.S.

According to an excerpt from James Marten’s book “Slaves and Rebels: A Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1861 – 1865,” there were enslaved people on King Ranch at the time.

10. Pingree Heirs: 830k Acres

The Pingree heirs, descendants of David Pingree Sr., own 830,000 acres of land in Maine. Pingree Sr. was a shipping merchant who expanded into timberland in the 1800s through his company, Seven Islands Land Company, which the family owns and operates today.

How Much Land Is Owned by Indigenous People In the U.S.?

Only about 2.6% of American land is owned by Indigenous people today, as a result of forced migration and land dispossession that began with European colonization in the 17th century.

Native tribes have lost 99% of the land they historically occupied in the United States, according to data from 2021 on the long-term impacts of land dispossession.

According to the research, Indigenous lands today also have less access to participate in the energy economy, with 24% fewer oil and gas resources compared to historical lands.

How Much of U.S. Land Is Owned by Other Countries?

Foreign countries are investing in U.S. land, too. Foreign entities and individuals have a stake in an estimated 40 million acres in the U.S.—about 3.1% of the privately held farm and forest land—in the country, according to 2021 data (most recent available) from the USDA.

Canada owns the largest share (31%) of foreign-owned U.S. land at 12.8 million acres. The Netherlands, Italy, the UK, and Germany hold another 31% of foreign-owned land, totaling 12.4 million acres combined. Meanwhile, China owns only 1% of foreign-owned land in the U.S.

Half of all the U.S. land held by foreign investors is for timber or forest land, followed by crops, pasture, and other agricultural land, while just 2% is non-agricultural land.

The Bottom Line

Land in the United States is a powerful and often overlooked asset, concentrated in the hands of a small group of wealthy individuals, corporations, and foreign investors. While families like the Emmersons, Malones, and Turners dominate private ownership, foreign countries like Canada and corporations also hold a meaningful stake.

Meanwhile, Indigenous communities, who once occupied nearly all U.S. territory, now control just a small fraction. Understanding who owns the land helps shed light on wealth distribution, resource access, and national policy issues.