# Largest, longest held private property **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299 "2015-03-18T15:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/21 "2015-03-19T02:07:41Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The OP was looking for “something that isn’t owned by a queen, duke, or earl.” There would be untitled gentry in the same position. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/22 "2015-03-19T04:10:55Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Pfft! The Anna Creek cattle station in South Australia is 24,000 sq km, which makes it larger than the State of Israel. Is it all private land owned by a family, not a company and is there any government land which they are using but do not own? In the US, a single chunk of land in one holding that big would be hard to find due to government land. IIRC, anyone know for sure? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/23 "2015-03-19T04:23:09Z")
> **[Anna Creek Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Creek_Station)** > > Anna Creek Station is the world's largest working cattle station. It is located in the Australian state of South Australia. > Anna Creek Station has an area of 23,677 km2 (9,142 sq mi; 5,851,000 acres) which is slightly larger than Israel.\[dead link\] It is 8,000 km2 (2,000,000 acres; 3,100 sq mi) larger than its nearest rival, Alexandria Station in the country's Northern Territory. It is over seven times the size of the United States' biggest ranch, King Ranch in Texas, which is 3,340 km2 (830,... According to the article it looks like it’s owned by a company that appears to be a family-owned business. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/24 "2015-03-19T05:43:42Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The award for “longest-held” is certainly not going to any property in the New World. There would be estates in England still occupied by the same family on the basis of a grant by William the Conqueror following the Norman invasion in 1066. And there are certainly many properties occupied by the same family on foot of a grant of land following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. And I dare say there would be analogous situations in other European countries which have not been subject to invasion and colonisation for even longer periods. > [@jezzaOZ](#): > > There are older British estates which were owned by knights who turned coat and gave aliegance to William. The Grevilles, present occupants of the Earldom of Warwick were one such family, but their land ownership appears to have changed over time. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The OP was looking for “something that isn’t owned by a queen, duke, or earl.” The Domesday book would list the ownership of some estates down to pretty much the lowest level of nobility IIRC. Some of those must still be in the original families’ possession. The Domesday Book was complied in the decade or two after the Norman Conquest of 1066 so Willy could be sure what was what and who owned it (and what taxes he could expect). I’m trying to think of some other European countries that might have continuity of ownership - Scotland, the Thane of Cawdor and that sort of thing - almost as long. Germany, France, and some of the rest have undergone revolutions and government discontinuities, as has eastern Europe. Spain was only liberated from the Moors in 1492. What about Portugal? How about some of those tiny countries? San Marino, etc.? Oh, and Iceland IIRC has records going back to the settlement. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/25 "2015-03-19T05:52:25Z")
It’s operated by a family company, S. Kidman & Co, which was founded by Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) and is now owned by his descendants. I don’t know whether the company owns the land, or leases or licenses it from family members who own it. Either way, I wouldn’t attach too much importance to this. The exact role played by the family company may be chosen for tax or commercial reasons, but it doesn’t affect the underlying economic reality, which is that the Kidman family own the property. It’s also possible - indeed, likely - that the land is not held freehold, but on a pastoral lease. This form of title was invented in the nineteenth century - the government of a colony (or, later, a state) would grant land to settlers not freehold, but on a very long lease for a nominal rent. The idea was that the lease would contain terms and covenants which would control the way the land was used and developed. This was before planning codes, land use codes, etc were thought of. Again, I wouldn’t see this as interfering with the economic reality that the pastoral leaseholder owns the land any more than the application of planning codes, building codes, etc means that freeholders don’t own their land. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/26 "2015-03-19T06:41:31Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > You asked two questions: Which is biggest? and Which is longest? It is nonsense to try to ask which is both the biggest \*and \*longest unless by some wild coincidence one particular property is both the biggest and the longest. Much more likely there is one biggest ever, and one longest ever, but they’re two different properties. ETA: or what **chrisk** said just a moment before. Multiply acreage by length of time held, and get a third answer. Obviously. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/27 "2015-03-19T06:50:49Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m trying to think of some other European countries that might have continuity of ownership - Scotland, the Thane of Cawdor and that sort of thing - almost as long. Germany, France, and some of the rest have undergone revolutions and government discontinuities, as has eastern Europe . . . But revolution, government discontinuity, etc doesn’t necessarily involve dispossession of private landowners - just look at the American revolution. It’s only _socialist_ revolutions, and colonial invasions, that tend to involve this. In the past two hundred-odd years France has been through five republics, two empires, a Nazi occupation with puppet state and a couple of assorted kingdoms, but there are lots of families who have been in uninterrupted possession of the same land throughout. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/28 "2015-03-19T13:23:23Z")
What about Niihau? IIRC, it was owned by Kamehameha after he conquered it, and it’s been sold to a (short) series of private owners ever since. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/29 "2015-03-19T14:03:47Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > But revolution, government discontinuity, etc doesn’t necessarily involve dispossession of private landowners - just look at the American revolution. It’s only _socialist_ revolutions, and colonial invasions, that tend to involve this. In the past two hundred-odd years France has been through five republics, two empires, a Nazi occupation with puppet state and a couple of assorted kingdoms, but there are lots of families who have been in uninterrupted possession of the same land throughout. The issue there is that documented possession (and documented family history) generally would be reserved for the nobility, even if they are bottom level nobility. The exception might be places like Iceland where the genealogy records do exist going a long way back. I tried tracing my less-than-noble family back a ways, and the birth and marriage records peter out somewhere near the English civil war - the roundheads were not interested in supporting the Church of England and its “mission” to track marriages and christenings. before that, the church was only tasked with this activity IIRC about 1537 and records for the next 100 years are pretty sparse. Records for the noble families however go back much further. The other problem is that the turmoil of war or revolution would mean that quite often records would be destroyed; so the property may have been continuously owned, but the evidence is gone. The French for example would have likely confiscated most property belonging to those with a noble title, and there may be a discontinuity in the family tree. I’m not sure what the state of church and land records would be like in, say, Italy, or even India or Thailand or anywhere else with a long recorded history. In China, for example, there’s a really good chance any significant property would have been taken by the government. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/30 "2015-03-19T14:07:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The OP was looking for “something that isn’t owned by a queen, duke, or earl.” Not necessarily. I assumed the answer would be someone from the nobility, so I’m also interested in examples involving the non-titled. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/31 "2015-03-19T17:35:53Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > I’m always puzzled by these questions that have two different superlatives in them. If you have one parcel of 100 acres held for 500 years, and another for 400 acres held for 150 years, which wins? > [@LSLGuy](#): > > You asked two questions: Which is biggest? and Which is longest? It is nonsense to try to ask which is both the biggest \*and \*longest unless by some wild coincidence one particular property is both the biggest and the longest. Much more likely there is one biggest ever, and one longest ever, but they’re two different properties. Not nonsense at all. There is something call Pareto optimization, that allows us to construct a trade-off curve between parameters. From **chrisk** ’s two examples, we can’t say which is better. But we do know that parcels of 50 acres and 400 years, or 300 acres and 100 years aren’t as good. Basically, if am example loses on both size and duration, we throw it out. We’ll be left with a curve of extremes (called a “Pareto front”). [Nate Silver discusses the math in another context](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/marco-rubio-and-the-pareto-frontier/), although he mistakenly connects the dots with straight lines instead of concave rectangles. From this thread we have: Houshi Ryokan, tiny size, from 718. Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, tiny size, from 705. Gardiners Island, 13 km2, from 1639. Naushon Island, 19 km2, from 1842. Hohenzollern Castle, tiny size, from 1267. Anna Creek Station, 24,000 km2, from 1872. So, the extremes are: Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, tiny size, from 705. Gardiners Island, 13 km2, from 1639. Naushon Island, 19 km2, from 1842. Anna Creek Station, 24,000 km2, from 1872. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/32 "2015-03-19T18:37:11Z")
\*_ahem_ \*I’d include Niihau on that summary. Conquered by Kamehameha in 1810; Sold to the Sinclairs in 1864; Still privately owned by the Sinclair family; 69.5 square miles. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/33 "2015-03-19T20:06:15Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > If you have one parcel of 100 acres held for 500 years, and another for 400 acres held for 150 years, which wins? That’s easy! The first one is 50,000 parcel-years, the second on is 60,000 parcel-years, so the 2nd one is the clear winner! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/34 "2015-03-19T21:12:03Z")
[Graphing the results](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+%281%2C1310%29%2C%2813%2C376%29%2C%2819%2C173%29%2C%2869.5%2C151%29%2C%2824000%2C143%29), it becomes pretty clear that the overall winner will almost always be either Anna Creek Station or Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan for whatever metric is used to calculate an overall winner. It would be very difficult (though not impossible) for the winner to be Gardiners Island, Naushon Island, or Niihau. If we use the age\*years formula suggested by **foolsguinea** and **Qadgop the Mercotan** , the answer is unambiguously Anna Creek Station for 3432000 kilometer squared years, followed most likely by other large and long-lived cattle ranches such as JA Ranch. I estimated the size of Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan as 1 kilometer squared based on pictures online ー no exact source seems to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Corner\_Case](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/corner_case/32/234_2.png) [@Corner\_Case](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corner_Case)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299/35 "2015-03-19T21:53:47Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > That’s easy! The first one is 50,000 parcel-years, the second on is 60,000 parcel-years, so the 2nd one is the clear winner! I bet my Imperial Speeder Bike could make that run in less than 11 parsecs! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/largest-longest-held-private-property/715299.md?page=1)