Polygon layer · Minerals & Subsurface
BLM mining claims and who holds the ground
Active mining claims on federal land — who already staked it.
BLM mining claims are a land tenure layer, not a geology layer, and they are drawn as hollow rings for exactly that reason. A deposit under an active claim is someone else's deposit, and the claim record is the cheapest way to find that out.
- Source
- BLM
- Refresh
- Weekly
- Geometry
- Polygon
- Included from
- Complete
Why BLM Claims matters
Claim staking is the earliest visible move in a mineral play — it happens long before a drill program, a permit or a press release. Watching who is staking and where is a legitimate read on where the next district is forming, and it is entirely public.
Questions BLM Claims answers
- Is this ground already claimed, and by whom?
- Where has claim staking accelerated in the last year?
- Which claimants are quietly assembling a position in this district?
- Are there open gaps inside an otherwise staked block?
What is in the BLM Claims data
Coverage: Federal land across the western US. Source dataset: Active mining claims (LR2000 lineage).
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Claimant | Name of record on the claim. |
| Claim type | Lode, placer, mill site or tunnel site. |
| Claim name | As filed with the BLM. |
| Location date | When the claim was staked, the seniority marker for claim disputes. |
How we serve BLM Claims
We query the primary and fallback BLM endpoints in parallel and take the fastest non-empty result, which halved worst-case latency. Empty responses are never cached, so a transient upstream failure cannot poison the layer into looking like unclaimed ground.
BLM mining claims — source, refresh and coverage
- Steward
- BLM
- Dataset
- Active mining claims (LR2000 lineage)
- Refresh cadence
- Weekly
- Coverage
- Federal land across the western US
- Records
- 579,902 rows
- Geometry
- Polygon
- Included from
- Complete plan
Who uses BLM Claims
Mining & Exploration
Deposits, active claims, protected land and the water to run a mine — on one map.
Water Rights Investing
Price seniority, spot the mismatch between paper water and wet water, and find positions before they are listed.
Legal & Title Diligence
Authoritative records, chain context and export-ready evidence for adjudication and title work.
Read BLM Claims alongside
Mine Locations
USGS MRDS mines and deposits, filterable by commodity.
Protected Areas
PAD-US conserved lands by GAP status — what is off the table, and what only looks like it.
Oil/Gas Leases
Federal oil and gas lease parcels and their status.
Water Rights
Adjudicated water rights across 17 western states, on one map.
Terms used on this page
See BLM Claims on the map
This layer is included from Complete upward, alongside every other layer in the Complete coverage.