94 – Aubrey McClendon – 98,106 acres

The Chesapeake Energy (CHK) CEO and chairman makes his debut on The Land Report 100 after closing on the 18,506-acre TI Valley Ranch just south of McAlester in his native Oklahoma. Located in Pittsburg County, the trophy property is approximately 50 percent timber (shortleaf pine) and 50 percent native grass.

75 – Robert A. Funk – 124,744 acres

Funk’s Express Ranches run one of the largest seed stock operations in the country. The ranches—Express Ranches in Yukon, Oklahoma; Express Atmore Ranch in Ute Park, New Mexico; and
the Express UU Bar Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico—also develop, test, and export genetics, as well as conduct an artificial insemination and embryo transfer program.

77 – Drummond Family – 119,649 acres

Drummond Land & Cattle Co. dates back to 1887, when three Drummond brothers first learned the Osage language in order to lease land from the tribe. Tim and Ladd Drummond now manage ranching and farming operations in Osage and Jefferson counties with more than 6,500 mother cows, 4,000 wild horses, and 12,000 yearlings.

10 – Huber Family – 600,000 acres

Started in 1883 by Joseph Maria Huber, the New Jersey-based J.M. Huber Corporation has grown from a small dry-colors business into a multinational, industrially diverse company. But evenwith all this growth, at least one thing hasn’t changed: The Huber family is still minding the store, and the corporation is one of the largest family-owned businesses in the country. The land holdings of Huber’s natural resources division include 600,000 acres across the country. The company has timberland in Maine, Oklahoma, and the Southeast, and its oil and gas properties can be found in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Utah.

1. Ted Turner – 2 million acres

Why on earth would one man own 20 properties in 10 states, a swath of America so large that it not only dwarfs Rhode Island, but also exceeds both Rhode Island and Delaware combined? The answer is astonishingly simple. Because he’s Ted Turner.

The man is incapable of thinking small. That’s how he made his fortune, first by buying a failing UHF station and transforming it into WTBS. Then he launched CNN. Then he acquired the MGM movie library. Then he rolled out Turner Classic Movies. With Turner, one idea begets another, which is how he became the country’s leading land baron.

The brainstorm behind his far-flung empire was a single bison he bought in 1976. Three decades later, he owns 40,000, the largest private herd in the country. Bison steaks and bison burgers from Turner Ranches are shipped to upscale grocers coast to coast and served at his chain of restaurants, Ted’s Montana Grill.

Along the way, he purchased 14 ranches in 7 western states: 4 in Montana, 4 in Nebraska, and 3 others in South Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma. In New Mexico alone, he owns more than 1 million acres.

“I acquired more land because I required more land. I wanted it,” Turner said in a 2004 interview. “I never like to buy anything except land. It’s the only thing that lasts.”

The Turner portfolio also includes personal homes in the Atlanta area and in Big Sur, as well as plantations in South Carolina and Florida, where his beloved Avalon lies. This treasured retreat encompasses more than 25,000 acres south of Tallahassee, and with a conservationist’s touch, Turner is reintroducing longleaf pine on the property. The vast majority of his holdings, however, can be found on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountain West, where he stocks his bison.

Turner’s ultimate plan? According to published reports, after his death the properties will go into a trust, which his five children will manage until the last one passes away. At that point, the trust will revert to the Turner Foundation, an Atlanta-based charitable organization that Turner founded in 1990 to preserve the environment.