How much pristine wilderness land remains in the Lower 48?

Question

What percentage of the land lies outside of agricultural and urban areas.

I am a regular subscriber to Nat'l Geographic and am fascinated by those areas which remain 'untouched' by man (parts of New Guinea, Amazon, Siberia, Mongolia).

I've travelled cross-country in the US and have come to realize how blessed we are to have such a humongous country. Much of the land though is paved or covered by farms - hence the above question.

Answer 1

I can't give you a statistic, thought you might like to know this.

Take a drive to Yellowstone National Park.  Incredible.  If you get away from the touristy spots, you can walk around for days and only see a few people.  Getting eaten by a bear is a real possibility.   The only parts touched by man are the roads, hotels and campgrounds...which take up very little land compared to the park.  Even the drive up there (we went from Denver)...there is so much land that is just land you have to worry about running out of gas between gas stations.

Answer 2

The Northwest is a large area where the population is not as large as the rest of the country. Wyoming only has about a half a million people- less than Washington D.C. Montana, Idaho, and the Pacific Coast still have plenty of forests, though very little is virgin forest.

The truth is, there can be no exact measurement of the amount of untouched land. To do that, one would need to know where every person that ever existed has gone or settled. Trust me, there is still a large amount of wilderness in the Lower 48, but because of the developed transportation systems, it is possible to access the most remote areas in a matter of days.

I see your point about the untouched places of the world. Russia is huge, 2.5 times larger than the whole U.S. but with half the population. The Amazon is still fairly secluded but many people are encroaching on its territories as part of the deforestation process. In North America, Alaska and Canada are very huge areas that are very sparsely populated.