Kansas Walk-In Hunting Land, 2026-27: 952,641 Acres, Densest in Wallace County

Cheyenne County has the most walk-in hunting acres in Kansas for 2026-27, 45,055, but Wallace County has the highest share of its land enrolled, 7.53%. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) maps 952,641 acres on 3,554 tracts in 98 of the state's 105 counties in its 2026-27 online hunting atlas, and 22.3% of those acres carry an access window that starts November 1 instead of September 1. Which county suits you depends on your dates as much as on acreage.

KDWP publishes its Walk-In Hunting Access (WIHA) tracts through an online hunting atlas for 2026-27, and the atlas draws them from a public map service. We read that 2026-2027 WIHA Access layer, last edited September 18, 2026, on September 29, 2026. It holds 3,554 tracts totaling 952,641 acres across 98 of the state's 105 counties. Barber, Franklin, Marion, Miami, Rice, Sedgwick and Wyandotte counties have no tract in it. For comparison, KDWP's 2025-26 layer held 3,736 tracts and 995,761 acres.

Share of county land is the number that separates the counties. The median of the 98 counties that have any walk-in land is 1.29%, and Wallace County's 7.53% is nearly six times that. Nineteen of the 20 densest counties lie in the western half of the state, and Marshall County is the exception. The method section below defines the halves.

Wallace County has 44,053 acres on 96 tracts, 7.53% of its land. Cheyenne County has 45,055 acres on 82 tracts, 6.90%. Cheyenne's extra acres sit in a larger county, by Census land area, which is why Wallace ranks first on share. Rawlins (5.51%), Hamilton (5.27%), Morton (5.09%) and Graham (5.08%) come next on share. By acres the order after Cheyenne and Wallace is Rawlins (37,681), Hamilton (33,614), Thomas (32,328) and Graham (29,209).

Tract layout differs from county to county. The layer averages 268 acres a tract (952,641 acres over 3,554 tracts). Clark County has 20,090 acres on only 24 tracts, about 837 acres each, while Marshall County has 24,759 acres on 144 tracts, about 172 each. Clark is a few large places to check and Marshall is many small ones.

Each tract carries a contract window, and the layer's own map legend labels the five in use. Three start September 1 and two start November 1. The Nov. 1 windows cover 878 tracts and 212,635 acres, which is 22.3% of the total. The biggest single window is Sept. 1 - Jan. 31, with 449,125 acres, or 47.1%. We quote the legend's labels as written and take no position on which hunting seasons fall inside them.

The split changes a lot from county to county. In Trego County 73% of the enrolled acres start November 1, in Graham County 71% and in Greeley County 55%. In Hamilton (6%), Marshall (5%) and Decatur (9%) nearly all the acres start September 1. Graham ranks sixth on share of county land at 5.08%, yet only 29% of that land is in a window that starts in September.

The layer carries a flag for archery and shotshell only, and KDWP's map legend adds the label "(Archery/Shotshell Only)" to the window of every flagged tract. The flag is set on 207 tracts covering 54,356 acres, or 5.7% of the total. We take no view on which weapons that allows beyond those words. If your plan depends on a particular method, check the legend label and the note on each tract before you choose it.

KDWP also publishes a Spring WIHA layer, last edited April 15, 2026, with 1,182 tracts and 299,738 acres in 78 counties. We do not assign it a season year. It is a separate layer and not an add-on to the 2026-27 total. Of its 1,182 tracts, 701 carry the same KDWP area ID as a 2026-27 tract, so adding the two would very likely count part of the same land twice, and we do not add them.

Marshall County leads the spring layer with 23,724 acres on 138 tracts, against 24,759 acres in the 2026-27 layer. Five of the spring top ten (Marshall, Washington, Elk, Jewell and Ottawa counties) lie in the eastern half of the state, where only Marshall County reaches the 2026-27 top 20 on share.

Acres open to hunting say nothing about deer or bird numbers on them, so this paper ranks access and nothing else. Share of county land divides walk-in acres by Census land area. KDWP updates the atlas during the season, so check the live atlas and each tract's legend before you drive.

We read two layers: the 2026-2027 WIHA Access layer and the Spring WIHA layer. The atlas also carries a separate layer titled IWIHA, which we did not read, so tracts that appear only there are not counted. KDWP's own website returned an access-denied error to our automated requests, so we did not read its rules pages, and this paper says nothing about season dates, tract rules or permit requirements. The 952,641 acres are the sum of the tracts in one layer. Other counts of walk-in land, including totals published for the program as a whole, may count different tracts or use different definitions.

Western and eastern halves follow one rule. A county is in the western half when its centroid lies west of the midpoint of the state's east-west extent, longitude 98.32 degrees west, and in the eastern half when it lies east of it.

Decide when you will hunt, then read the county's Nov. 1 share in the table. A hunter working in September should look at counties where most acres start September 1, such as Hamilton, Marshall and Decatur, and leave Trego and Graham for later. Every window in the layer covers November 1 through January 31, so a hunter in that stretch can sort by acres and tract count instead, where Cheyenne, Wallace and Rawlins lead.

Then open KDWP's atlas and confirm each tract you plan to use. The layer tells you where the land is and when its contract window runs. The tract note and the legend label are what to check on the day.

Even the densest county has walk-in land on only 7.53% of its acres. For ground beyond the tracts, see our permission playbook, and for the deer-data side of Kansas, our paper on hunting a survey state.