The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling 262 million acres or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. Most public lands are located in Western states. BLM was officially established in 1946, when the U.S. Grazing Service merged with the government's General Land Office (a product of the country's territorial expansion and the federal government's 19th-century homesteading policies). The BLM has a wide range of responsibilities including collecting geographic information, maintaining records of land ownership and mineral rights, conserving wilderness areas while allocating other areas for grazing and agriculture, and protecting cultural heritage sites on public land.
