Missouri/Wild Area System
The Division of State Parks of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), doing business as Missouri State Parks, has designated about 23,000 acres of state park land as "wild areas" comprising Missouri's Wild Area System.[1] Wild areas are similar to natural areas, but wild area tracts are much larger, occur only within state parks, and place more emphasis on recreation. They are all managed by the DNR, but some state park land is leased from private entities like conservation nonprofits. This page is meant to provide useful mapping info and tagging guidance for each of Missouri's designated wild areas and document its mapping progress.
In OpenStreetMap, our state wild areas are generally mapped as boundary multipolygons with boundary=protected_area and leisure=nature_reserve. Each wild area has a Wikidata item as of July 2024, so the wikidata tag can be added to provide extra semantic information for data consumers. The website tag likely doesn't apply, though, since the DNR lacks official pages for its wild areas (unlike with natural areas).
List of wild areas
Big Sugar Creek Wild Area
![[W]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/24px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png "Wikidata"){kind=logo}
This is mapped as boundary relation 17872301
17872301.
Coonville Creek Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped.
East Fork Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped.
Elk River Hills Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped. The enclosing state park is only mapped as a point.
Gans Creek Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped. Some nearby trails are mapped.
Goggins Mountain Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped. The peak, itself, is mapped.
Indian Creek Wild Area
This is mapped as boundary relation 17872318 17872318.
Mudlick Mountain Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped. The peak and nearby trails are, though.
Northwoods Wild Area
This is mapped as boundary relation 17872349 17872349. The state park needs to have its boundary verified, as it does not currently include the wild area.
Patterson Hollow Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped.
Roaring River Hills Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped. The enclosing state park is doubly-mapped as way 1290728663
1290728663 and node 358064884
358064884.
Whispering Pine Wild Area
This wild area is not currently mapped.