The Largest Army Bases in the World, Ranked

The largest army base in the world is White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The US Army puts it at about 2.3 million acres, roughly 3,600 square miles (9,300 sq km), an area 100 miles long and 40 miles wide.

Most lists hand the title to Fort Bragg instead. Fort Bragg is the largest US Army base by population, with 48,775 active-duty soldiers, but at 251 square miles it does not make the top 12 by land.

This list ranks army installations by land area, using published figures, as of October 2026. Ten of the 12 are American, one is Canadian and one is Chinese, and the reason is simple: the US Army holds huge tracts of desert and Alaskan wilderness that no other army has.

Rank	Army base	Country	Land area	Main role
1	White Sands Missile Range	United States	about 3,600 sq mi (2.3 million acres)	Missile and weapons testing
2	Fort Wainwright	United States	about 2,500 sq mi (1.6 million acres)	Arctic training, 11th Airborne Division
3	Fort Bliss	United States	about 1,750 sq mi (1.12 million acres)	1st Armored Division
4	Yuma Proving Ground	United States	over 1,300 sq mi	Weapons and vehicle testing
5	Dugway Proving Ground	United States	about 1,250 sq mi (798,855 acres)	Chemical and biological defense testing
6	CFB Suffield	Canada	about 1,040 sq mi (2,700 sq km)	Live-fire training, BATUS
7	Fort Irwin	United States	about 1,000 sq mi	National Training Center
8	Joint Base Lewis-McChord	United States	about 640 sq mi (410,000 acres)	Army post with Yakima Training Center
9	Fort Carson	United States	about 580 sq mi (372,000 acres)	Main post plus Piñon Canyon
10	Fort Stewart	United States	about 436 sq mi (279,270 acres)	3rd Infantry Division
11	Zhurihe Training Base	China	412 sq mi (1,066 sq km)	PLA combined-arms training
12	Fort Hood	United States	335 sq mi (about 214,000 acres)	Central Texas training post

1. White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico

White Sands spans about 2.3 million acres of southern New Mexico, according to the Army. Army test planners call it the largest land-based open-air test range in the US, and it is so big that the range, not the FAA, controls the airspace above it.

It opened in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range and became White Sands Proving Ground on July 9, 1945. Seven days later, on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated at its Trinity site.

Today it is part of the Army Test and Evaluation Command and tests missiles for all the services. Its own airstrip, Condron Army Airfield, sits near the southern end of the range. White Sands also ranks second in our list of the largest military bases in the US, behind an Air Force range in Nevada.

2. Fort Wainwright, Alaska

Fort Wainwright manages more than 1.6 million acres of interior Alaska, about 2,500 square miles (6,475 sq km). An Army environmental report put that at roughly 10 percent of all the land the Army holds.

Most of it is not the post at Fairbanks. The installation is a main post plus seven major training areas and several satellite sites, where the 11th Airborne Division trains for Arctic warfare.

The base began as Ladd Field, an Army Air Forces cold-weather test site, and stayed with the Air Force until the Army took it over on January 1, 1961. In World War II, 7,926 aircraft were ferried through Ladd, many of them Lend-Lease planes bound for the Soviet Union by way of Nome and the Bering Strait.

Ladd Army Airfield still anchors the post, with an 8,575-foot runway and two Army aviation battalions among the base’s major tenants.

3. Fort Bliss, Texas and New Mexico

Fort Bliss covers about 1.12 million acres of Texas and New Mexico, roughly 1,750 square miles (4,530 sq km). It is the largest installation in Army Forces Command and the second largest in the Army after its neighbor, White Sands.

It also holds the Army’s largest maneuver area, about 992,000 acres, ahead of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. It is home to the 1st Armored Division, which returned to US soil in 2011 after about 40 years in Germany.

Its airfield is a former bomber base. Biggs Air Force Base became Biggs Army Airfield in 1973, and its 13,554-foot main runway ranks 12th among the longest runways in the US. NASA used it as a refueling stop for the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

4. Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona

Yuma Proving Ground holds over 1,300 square miles (3,370 sq km) of range space in the Sonoran Desert, larger than Rhode Island, under nearly 2,000 square miles of restricted airspace. It tests nearly everything the Army fires or drives, from artillery and tank rounds to parachutes and drones.

It is also an aviation test site, with six airfields in total. The main one, Laguna Army Airfield, has runways of 6,000 and 5,150 feet, and the range tests helicopter weapons and unmanned aircraft.

5. Dugway Proving Ground, Utah

Dugway covers 798,855 acres of Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert, about 1,250 square miles (3,230 sq km). Founded in 1942, it tests the defenses US and allied forces use against chemical and biological weapons.

Its isolation is the point, and its history shows why. In 1968, about 6,249 sheep died in Skull Valley, nearly 30 miles away, and necropsies found the nerve agent VX, which matched open-air tests at Dugway. The Army never admitted liability but paid the ranchers.

Michael Army Airfield dates from the base’s first construction, and the range now also supports drone and missile development.

6. CFB Suffield, Canada

Canadian Forces Base Suffield, in southeast Alberta, covers 2,700 square kilometers, about 1,040 square miles. The Canadian Army calls it the largest military training area in Canada, and it is the largest army base outside the United States on this list.

Its maneuver training area alone covers 1,588 square kilometers (613 sq mi). The British Army has trained there since 1972 through BATUS, the British Army Training Unit Suffield, which runs battle-group exercises Britain has no room for at home.

The base is also home to the Suffield Research Centre, which works on landmine detection, explosives and defense against chemical and biological agents.

7. Fort Irwin, California

On August 8, 1940, a presidential order withdrew almost 1,000 square miles (2,590 sq km) of California’s High Desert for the Army. That land became Fort Irwin, home of the National Training Center since October 16, 1980.

Brigades rotate through to fight the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the post’s resident opposing force, in the nearest thing the Army has to a real war. Bicycle Lake Army Airfield supports the aviation side of those exercises.

Fort Irwin ranks just below Suffield on land, by about 40 square miles.

8. Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is an Army-run base shared with the Air Force’s McChord Field. Lewis Main, Lewis North and McChord together cover more than 86,000 acres near Tacoma.

The bulk is somewhere else. The Yakima Training Center, a sub-installation on the dry side of the Cascades, adds 324,000 acres, for a total of about 410,000 acres (640 sq mi).

The base started with a local gift. In 1917, Pierce County voters approved a $2 million bond to buy 70,000 acres and donate them to the federal government for an Army post.

9. Fort Carson, Colorado

Fort Carson’s main post near Colorado Springs covers about 137,000 acres. The Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, bought in 1983 about 150 road miles to the southeast, adds about 235,000 acres, for a total of about 372,000 acres (580 sq mi).

Butts Army Airfield, built from 1963 to 1966 with a 4,573-foot runway, handles the post’s aviation. It is named for Medal of Honor recipient John E. Butts.

10. Fort Stewart, Georgia

Fort Stewart covers 279,270 acres across parts of six Georgia counties, about 436 square miles (1,130 sq km). It is the largest Army installation east of the Mississippi River, and home of the 3rd Infantry Division.

Its aviation lives 40 miles away in Savannah, at Hunter Army Airfield, a 5,400-acre field that also hosts Coast Guard Station Savannah.

11. Zhurihe Training Base, China

Zhurihe, in Inner Mongolia northwest of Beijing, covers 1,066 square kilometers, or 412 square miles. The People’s Liberation Army calls it the largest training base in Asia and its most modernized.

Founded in 1957, it is built for large exercises, and its mock facilities include an airstrip. Xi Jinping held the PLA’s 90th-anniversary parade there in 2017.

The figure comes from Chinese state media and has no independent check. It is the only Chinese base with a published size, so larger ones may exist.

12. Fort Hood, Texas

Fort Hood occupies 335 square miles (868 sq km) of central Texas, about 214,000 acres, with 36,200 active-duty military personnel. Before the Soviet Union broke up, it was billed as the largest military base in the free world.

It has carried three names: John Bell Hood, a Confederate general, until 2023, then Fort Cavazos, and since June 2025 Fort Hood again, now for Col. Robert B. Hood, a World War I Distinguished Service Cross recipient.

Robert Gray Army Airfield at West Fort Hood doubles as Killeen Regional Airport, so airline passengers land on an Army runway.

The largest army base by population: Fort Bragg

Rank by people and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, wins. Military OneSource calls it the largest US Army base by population, with 48,775 active-duty soldiers, 17,345 civilian employees and contractors, and 70,109 active-duty family members.

That crowd lives on 251 square miles (650 sq km), less than a third of Fort Irwin. Its aviation runs from two fields: Simmons Army Airfield for Army helicopters and Pope Field for Air Force airlift.

The name changed twice in two years. It became Fort Liberty on June 2, 2023, and returned to Fort Bragg on February 14, 2025, now honoring World War II paratrooper Roland L. Bragg rather than the Confederate general Braxton Bragg.

The largest US Army base overseas: Camp Humphreys

Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, is the largest US military base overseas. It nearly tripled in size, to about 3,454 acres (5.4 sq mi), in a $10.7 billion expansion, and South Korea paid roughly 90 percent of the bill.

Its size is measured in buildings, not wilderness: about 500 of them. Desiderio Army Airfield, on the post, has an 8,124-foot runway.

The largest army bases in Europe

Europe is too crowded for bases on this scale. Salisbury Plain, where the British Army has trained since 1898, is the largest military training area in the UK, with about 150 square miles (390 sq km) owned by the Ministry of Defence.

The village of Imber, in the middle of it, was emptied in 1943 so troops could rehearse for D-Day, and it has stayed closed ever since apart from a few open days a year.

Grafenwöhr in Bavaria, a German-owned training area run by the US Army’s 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command, is the largest US training facility in Europe. It covers 90 square miles (232 sq km) and has been a training area since 1907.

For comparison, CFB Suffield is seven times the size of Salisbury Plain, which is why the British Army crosses the Atlantic to train with tanks. The same squeeze shapes the largest air bases in the world and the largest naval bases in the world, where the US also takes most of the top places.

Why the biggest army bases are American

The top of this list is a map of the American West and Alaska. The Army took large tracts of empty federal land in the 1940s, as at Fort Irwin in 1940 and Dugway in 1942, and kept them for ranges that need tens of miles of safety space.

Other armies train on whatever land they can find, often abroad: the British Army in Canada, and US Marines in Australia. If you are weighing a career on one of these posts, our Air Force vs Army comparison sets out how the two services’ bases and jobs differ.

FAQ

What is the largest army base in the world?

By land area, the largest army base in the world is White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, at about 2.3 million acres, or roughly 3,600 square miles (9,300 sq km), according to the US Army. By population, the largest is Fort Bragg in North Carolina, with 48,775 active-duty soldiers.

Who has the largest army base?

The United States does. The US Army runs 10 of the 12 largest army bases with a published size, led by White Sands Missile Range, Fort Wainwright and Fort Bliss. The largest outside the US is Canada’s CFB Suffield, at about 1,040 square miles (2,700 sq km).

Is Fort Bragg the largest military base in the world?

Fort Bragg is the largest US Army base by population, with 48,775 active-duty soldiers and more than 70,000 family members, but not by size. At 251 square miles (650 sq km) it is far smaller than White Sands Missile Range or Fort Bliss.

Who is Fort Bragg named after?

Since February 14, 2025, Fort Bragg has been named for Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper. It was originally named for the Confederate general Braxton Bragg and was called Fort Liberty from June 2023 until the 2025 change.

What is the largest US Army base overseas?

Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, is the largest US military base overseas. It covers about 3,454 acres after a $10.7 billion expansion, roughly 90 percent of it paid by South Korea.

What is the largest army base in Europe?

Salisbury Plain is the largest military training area in the UK, with about 150 square miles (390 sq km) owned by the Ministry of Defence. Grafenwöhr in Germany, at 90 square miles (232 sq km), is the largest US Army training facility in Europe.

What is the biggest army base in the US?

White Sands Missile Range is the biggest US Army installation by land, at about 2.3 million acres. Fort Bliss, at about 1.12 million acres, is the largest in Army Forces Command and second overall, and Fort Stewart is the largest east of the Mississippi River.

How big is Fort Bliss?

Fort Bliss covers about 1.12 million acres of Texas and New Mexico, roughly 1,750 square miles (4,530 sq km). It also has the Army’s largest maneuver area, about 992,000 acres.