The U.S. ranks 41st in protected areas

According to the World Resources Institute, as of 2004, 8.4% of the total land area in the United States was designated as a protected area, a percentage that makes the United States tied for forty-first with Japan and Zambia. Venezuela ranked first, with 34.2% of the land protected.

For the planet as a whole, 6.1% of the land is protected.

The U.S. ranks 1st in protected areas

According to the World Resources Institute, in 2005 there were 54,312,000 hectares of protected land (national parks, wilderness areas, and nature reserves) in the United States, 13.7% of the world’s total. That was enough to make the United States rank first in that category.