ABSTRACT
The ownership or control of land, water, minerals, timber, and even scenery is an important issue in Colorado for several reasons. Ownership of land has been described as possessing a bundle of rights, or "estates," that can be divided up in a number of different ways. For instance, landownership and land control can be separated. The state of Colorado owns approximately 3 million surface acres (1,215,000 ha). The origin of this ownership was in grants of land made by the federal government to the state primarily for the support of public education and public institutions. The total of these grants was about 4.7 million acres (1.9 million ha). The largest single category of granted lands (85 percent) was for the support of public schools, and these are called school lands. The federal government controls 37 percent of the land area of Colorado. This control is divided among twenty-two different federal agencies, but most of them manage very small amounts.
