How much publicly accessible green space does each Kentucky resident have? This map measures open-access public land — parks, forests, wildlife areas, and recreation grounds anyone can enter — drawn from the federal Protected Areas Database. Each county's total acreage is divided by its resident population and expressed in square feet per person.
Showing total publicly accessible green space per resident, regardless of transit access.
Green space data comes from the USGS Protected Areas Database 4.1, filtered to open-access parcels only; easements are excluded. Population figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2018–2022. Transit-accessible green space is calculated using a 400-meter buffer around each Lextran bus stop — a standard planning measure representing roughly a 5-minute walk — drawn from Lextran's published GTFS feed. School grounds are excluded because access is restricted by hours and gates. Privately managed green spaces like Gatton Park may not appear in the federal database and are therefore not reflected in these figures.