Number of Known Caves by State


Cave registries or cadastres are maintained on grotto level in the U.S.A., not by State! 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 from 2008. It does not give reliable numbers, but at least it is possible to get a general idea where most of the caves are located. The table is sortable, click on the heading.


State 2008 2019 2020–2024
Alabama 4306 4422 4500
Alaska 510 510 1000
Arizona 575 18 1000
Arkansas 437 575 2000
California 1807 1807 3000
Colorado 583 583 800
Connecticut 190 190 200
Delaware 3 2 10
Florida 251 816 1500
Georgia 581 829 800
Hawai’i 1776 1776 0
Idaho 229 229 500
Illinois 308 832 400
Indiana 3423 3652 3000
Iowa 498 498 500
Kansas 412 412 500
Kentucky 1102 5445 3500
Louisiana 7 10 20
Maine 228 228 300
Maryland 179 228 200
Massachusetts 199 199 200
Michigan 49 49 100
Minnesota 216 216 300
Mississippi 50 32 100
Missouri 2270 7302 7500
Montana 349 450 400
Nebraska 5 5 50
Nevada 185 185 300
New Hampshire 188 188 200
New Jersey 87 100 100
New Mexico 2156 2156 3000
New York 767 767 1000
North Carolina 109 1300 1000
North Dakota 4 4 20
Ohio 216 216 300
Oklahoma 508 3500 600
Oregon 303 303 1000
Pennsylvania 1954 1500 2000
Rhode Island 4 1 10
South Carolina 173 500 300
South Dakota 138 325 150
Tennessee 9285 10502 10000
Texas 5872 5742 15000
Utah 357 357 1000
Vermont 227 227 300
Virginia 4339 3977 4300
Washington 473 473 1000
West Virginia 4740 3732 4500
Wisconsin 367 367 400
Wyoming 349 386 400
Total:

The first column 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. We added his 2019 data. 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.

The NSS publishes rather general numbers, but does not maintain a list, so we have a collection from the early 2020s where the numbers were actually not published in the same year, they also seem to be rounded, and there are quite different definitions of caves. In other words, the surveys of some states include lava tubes while others don't, some include artificial underground spaces and so forth. The number for Texas contains many ‘cave features’, making it difficult to compare. And to make confusion complete: some states added long known caves to their list, while others removed caves from the lists to protect them. So there are states which have massively increased the number of caves, while others have fewer caves than 15 years before, which is obviously nonsense.

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