Source: Business Insider.
Who is America’s largest landowner? This question is the quest of the Land Report 100 Research Team all year long.
In 2024, America’s largest landowner is Red Emmerson. Red and his family own just over 2.4 million acres in California, Oregon, and Washington through their timber-products company, Sierra Pacific Industries. The Emmersons became America’s largest landowners in 2021 when they acquired 175,000 acres in Oregon from Seneca Timber Company. With that acquisition, the Emmersons surpassed Liberty Media chairman John Malone’s 2.2 million acres. CNN founder Ted Turner is America’s third largest landowner with 2 million acres in the Southeast, on the Great Plains, and across the West.
The Land Report 100 research team analyzes transactions and scours records to determine America’s leading landowners. That’s how we broke the news in 2020 that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was America’s largest farmland owner with more than 260,000 acres. We used the same methodology when we identified Shanda Investment Group founder Tianqiao Chen as the owner of almost 200,000 acres of Oregon timberland in 2024.
2. John Malone: 2.2 million acres
3. The Emmerson family owns 1,956,100 acres of timberland
4. The Reed family owns 1,729,232 acres of timberland across the northwest and south
5. Stan Kroenke owns 1,380,000 acres, including ranch land in Wyoming
Note, there are approximately 300,000 acres of land in an Iowa county.
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