Using the map
The web map workspace — layers, access verdicts, hunt unit research, and measuring, with no account required.
The web app is the full product: every layer and every tool works in the browser, and everything you save is stored locally on your device. An account adds cross-device sync and sharing — it never unlocks data.
The workspace
Pick a state (any of the nine), toggle layers, and click anywhere on the map. OpenHunt answers the question that matters first: can I stand here?
Clicking a spot identifies everything under it at once:
- The access verdict — public land (and its manager), private parcel (with owner, acreage, and county where the county publishes them), walk-in access property, or landlocked public land.
- The hunt unit it falls in — GMU in Colorado, elk hunt area in Wyoming, deer zone in California.
- Trails and motorized routes under the click — trail name and surface, or the MVUM route's vehicle class and seasonal dates.
Access layers are advisory, computed from open data. They are not a legal determination — confirm with the managing agency before you hunt. This matters most for the landlocked layer, which documents exactly how it errs.
Basemaps and terrain
Three basemaps: terrain (USGS Topo rendered dark, under our own sun-true hillshade), satellite imagery, and topo. Slope angle and aspect render as overlays from USGS 3DEP elevation — the same data the elevation profiles sample. Tilt the map for 3D terrain.
Hunt unit research
Each hunt unit has computed stats: percent public hunting land, landlocked acres, road density, and how much public ground sits more than a mile from a road.
Public hunting land is the federal and state land where hunting is the rule under state regulations: BLM, Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife refuges, Reclamation, the Army Corps, state wildlife, DNR, conservation and lands agencies, state trust land where PAD-US records it open, National Preserves, and the West's National Recreation Areas. City, county and state parks, private preserves, military and tribal land are public too, but they're usually closed to hunting, so each unit lists them separately as parks & other public instead of counting them. Pennsylvania's state parks, most of which open to hunting, count. Trail miles are mapped trails on that hunting land. Sidewalks and bike paths are left out. Search a unit to fly to it and pull up its profile — the numbers come from the pipeline's unit-profile command, so the methodology is inspectable, not editorial.
OpenHunt computes terrain math and publishes the formulas. It will never rank "top spots" or predict where game is — see the project principles.
Measuring
Distance and area tools live in the map toolbar. Route drawing snaps an elevation profile under your line as you go.