Wilderness Connect
Today, the NWPS includes over 111.8 million acres in 806 wilderness areas across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. These areas are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.
Find a Wilderness
Selecting an option will take you to that wilderness areas page. You can also find a designated wilderness on a map or by our advanced wilderness search for practitioners .
Maps - Wilderness
It's essential to have a good map with you in the backcountry, so here are some good options for places that offer quality printed wilderness maps. Local Outdoor/Sporting Goods Stores: Generally carry a selection of local recreation maps.
GIS and GPS Downloadable Data - Wilderness
Shapefiles of the entire wilderness system, as well as individual areas, are available for download below. A public wilderness feature service can be added in ArcGIS online or to other online maps. The feature service is full-featured and is available at world-room scales.
Fast Facts - Wilderness
Information about the 806 wilderness areas that make up the National Wilderness Preservation System is available in a searchable format. Use the practitioner's data search to find wilderness areas by name, agency, state, size or year of enacting legislation.
The Wilderness Act
For this purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as "wilderness areas", and these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and ...
Visit Wilderness
While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, …
Learn About Wilderness
Wilderness areas are the most protected public lands in America. Managed with restraint, they are intended to be self-willed lands, both philosophically and practically. Due to their unique character, these truly wild spaces have become part of a cavalier American identity.
Map - Wilderness
Maintained by the USGS, this dataset includes wilderness areas, other federal protected lands (Parks, Refuges, WSAs, roadless areas, DOD and Army Corps lands etc.), state lands, and privately protected lands.
No Drones in Wilderness
Avoiding wilderness areas is among the tips for responsible recreational drone use. Why are drones prohibited in wilderness areas? Howard Zahniser, author of the Wilderness Act, could never have forecast the invention of remote-controlled flying quad-copter robots.