Land Value Map

Excluding urbanized counties —a big exclusion, I know — what state would you say has the highest average land value in the United States?

I saw one of those random-fact maps on Facebook this morning that makes me think the answer is probably....

 

 

 

Iowa.

Almost the entire state of Iowa is colored yellow, which is something like $35,000 per hectare. There's no other state like that on the map. California has a lot of valuable agricultural land, too, but it has mountains  that come in with low land values. 

For an urban area, it doesn't take a lot to get to a million dollars per hectare. For instance, my city lot is 7,500 square feet, which is .17 acres or about .07 hectares. If that lot is worth $150,000 (which it easily could be in Saint Paul... or more, depending on the area), a hectare would be worth about $2.143 million. 

This map also illustrates how much land, especially in the West, is owned by the government, which plays a huge role in those states' politics. I don't think people in the East and South, and even the Midwest, realize that.