  Text size: A | A | A  [Print]  Creation and Growth of the
National Wilderness Preservation System     Trivia at a Glance
Click on the questions below to reveal or hide the answers. How
many wilderness areas are there in the NWPS? What is the total
acreage of the NWPS? 109,511,966 acres What's the smallest
wilderness? Pelican Island Wilderness, northern Florida (5.5
acres) (Note: Until recently the Rocks and Islands Wilderness in
northern California was thought to be the smallest wilderness,
however, recent Bureau of Land Management acreage measurements
put it at 5.89 acres instead of 19 acres.) What's the largest
wilderness? Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness, Alaska (9,078,675
acres) Where is the largest area of contiguous wilderness? In
this context, contiguous means wilderness land that is unbroken
by any exempted corridors. In Alaska, the Noatak and Gates of
the Arctic Wildernesses (12,743,329 acres) make up the largest
area of unbroken wilderness. In the lower 48 states, the largest
area of unbroken wild