Number of Known Caves by State


Cave registries or cadastres are maintained on grotto level in the U.S.A. Unfortunately the current numbers are not collected officially and so there are no reliable numbers. This is a rather old count of caves listed in the cave archives of the NSS. It does not give reliable numbers, but at least it is possible to see where most of the caves are located. The table is sortable, click on the heading.


State 2008
Alaska 510
Alabama 4306
Arkansas 437
Arizona 575
California 1807
Colorado 583
Connecticut 190
Delaware 3
Florida 251
Georgia 581
Hawai'i 1776
Idaho 229
Illinois 308
Indiana 3423
Iowa 498
Kansas 412
Kentucky 1102
Louisiana 7
Maine 228
Maryland 179
Massachusetts 199
Michigan 49
Minnesota 216
Mississippi 50
Missouri 2270
Montana 349
Nebraska 5
Nevada 185
New Hampshire 188
New Jersey 87
New Mexico 2156
New York 767
North Carolina 109
North Dakota 4
Ohio 216
Oklahoma 508
Oregon 303
Pennsylvania 1954
Rhode Island 4
South Carolina 173
South Dakota 138
Tennessee 9285
Texas 5872
Utah 357
Virginia 4339
Vermont 227
Washington 473
Wisconsin 367
West Virginia 4740
Wyoming 349

This are the numbers of the NSS Cave files from 2008. Unfortunately the local registries do not update their data regularly, so some numbers are extremely inaccurate. Bob Gulden made a similar list in 2010 and 2019, which gives similar numbers, but astonishingly sometimes gives more caves and sometimes less. After his death and the loss of his website (check the wayback machine if you are interested) the list was not moved to the new site, probably because it is actually futile.