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Federal, State, County and Major Cities
Park and Recreational Acreage
Los Angeles County

Crystal Lake Recreation Area in the Angeles National Forest. Los Angeles Almanac Photo.

Parks & Recreation Areas Acreage
Federal* 812,057*
State 46,375
County 65,528
City of Los Angeles 38,822
City of Long Beach 3,123
City of Glendale 2,076

* Federal park and recreational acreage includes the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area that overlaps into Ventura County (total 156,670 acres). Of this, the National Park Service manages only 23,620 acres, the California Dept. of Parks & Recreation manages another 42,000 acres and the rest is managed by local agency, university and private park and conservation concerns. Federal acreage above also includes that of the Angeles National Forest (655,387 acres) managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

Source: National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, California Dept. of Parks & Recreation, Los Angeles County Dept. of Parks & Recreation and The Trust for Public Land.



The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is Los Angeles County's only Federal park area and the nation's largest urban national park.


Although the City of Los Angeles is the nation's second most populous city and ranks eighth among the nation's largest cities for number of parkland acres, at 9.9 parkland acres per 1,000 residents, it ranks 62nd among the largest U.S. cities for acres per residents. Los Angeles further ranks fifth in California, behind Irvine (34.2 acres per 1k residents), San Diego (32.9), San Jose (15.8) and Riverside (11.5).