As the sixth largest country in the world, Australia spans a staggering 7.7 million square kilometres – that's 770 million hectares – with land ownership in the giant nation split between indigenous communities, the state, and private individuals and companies. As much as 62.7% of Australia is privately owned, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Click or scroll through as we look at 50 of the top landowners, from families that have farmed their land for generations to major multinational companies wanting to get in on the world of Aussie agriculture.

Michael and Angela Field and family have land holdings spanning 75,647 hectares. The family company, TA Field Estates Pty Limited, is based in Jugiong, New South Wales at the Benangaroo Station and is renowned for its merino sheep and beef cattle.

The Beidahuang Group, China's largest agricultural and agribusiness company, owns 85,000 hectares of farmland in Australia. There's been a growing trend of Chinese agribusiness firms snapping up hundreds of thousands of hectares of Aussie farmland in recent years. That said, the majority of this is now rumoured to have been leased out rather than used by the company itself, according to Farmland Grab.

The 90,900-hectare Prospect Station in Croydon, Queensland is the property of the McCoy family, as reported by the Weekly Times Now. The sizeable station is devoted to raising sheep and has been in the same family for a number of decades. In fact, around 88% of agriculture land in Australia is Australian-owned.

Former first-class cricketer turned politician and wool industry bigwig, Ian McLachlan is the owner of Tupra Station in New South Wales, as well as the nearby Oxley Station, which he added to his ever-growing portfolio in 2016 according to The Land.

The long-established Keats Family Pastoral is still run by the Keats family. The clan owns and operates four major cattle stations in Queensland, including properties near Cloncurry and Mackay, as well as Belford Station, Richmond. This equates to just under 125,000 hectares of land, according to the Weekly Times Now.

The Paspaley Group was established in 1935 by Greek immigrant Nicholas Paspaley as a pearl cultivation company, but it has since branched out into a number of areas, including land ownership, aviation and wine. We calculated that the company's pastoral properties in New South Wales and the Northern Territory total 138,181 hectares.

Founded in 2009, Hassad Australia is an offshoot of the Qatar Investment Authority. The company owns and operates nine farms across 152,000 hectares of land. The holding produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grain and raises 160,000 head of sheep a year, according to the company website.

The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) made its first acquisition in Australian farming in April 2019, purchasing 200,000 hectares of land including 40,000 Merino sheep, according to Arabian Business. Founded in 2012, this investment can be seen as part of SALIC's long-term goal of controlling all elements of agricultural production and supply on a global scale.

Employee-owned hedge fund Warakirri Asset Management is the parent company of several major farming businesses, including Warakirri Cropping, which owns and cultivates 80,000 hectares across Australia, and Aurora Dairies, which covers 4,600 hectares in the south of the country. In total Warakirri manages more than 200,000 hectares in Australia.

The brother of Vietnam's richest person, media boss Pham Nhat Vu branched out into the Australian beef industry in 2016 by purchasing the Northern Territory's Vermelha Station for a cool AU$18 million (£9.8m). He now controls 203,900 hectares, according to The Weekly Times.

The 205,000-hectare Elizabeth Downs Station in the Northern Territory of Australia was snapped up by Chinese group Yiang Xiang Assets in 2014 for AU$11.5 million (£6.3m). It was the first deal of its kind and set a trend for Chinese investors eyeing up land Down Under.

Next up is Australian Food & Agriculture, which has a bumper portfolio of farmland holdings in the state of New South Wales. From merino sheep stations to irrigated cropping layouts, the business, owned entirely by the local Bell family, has been growing steadily since the 1970s and currently sprawls across 225,405 hectares of land.

Alex Burt was born into money thanks to her late mining magnate father Michael Wright, and she and husband Julian bought Bullo River Station as their first cattle investment. The station stretches across 202,342 hectares near the border of Western Australia. In 2018, the pair bought another 24,000 hectares in the form of Wallcliffe House on the Margaret River, but their portfolio could be more extensive than their two recent investments thanks to their involvement with mining.

Michael Crisp and James Lethbridge manage Lorraine Pastoral Company, which is a cattle ranch supported by irrigated farming and feedlot. This 240,000-hectare property sits around 155 miles (250km) north of Cloncurry, Queensland in Australia, and has been a source of wealth for its owners since the 19th century.

Greg and Sharon Vickers own the Napier Pastoral Company, which made its first acquisitions in the Northern Territory in Australia in 2016 by buying 38,200-hectare Delmore Downs and 83,300-hectare Delny. In 2019 the pair added the 275,200 hectares of Pine Hill Station to their holdings. These stations are in addition to their land in the south, meaning that the couple likely owns far more than 396,700 hectares.

Farmers John and Clova Angus founded the family cattle-rearing company in 1960, raising, serendipitously, the Angus breed of cattle. Today, the Angus Pastoral Company, which owns at least 400,000 hectares of grazing land in its Kimberley and Sondella Stations, is run by their children and grandchildren.

Entrepreneur Craig Astill's sustainability-focused Caason Group is the sole proprietor of Aileron Pastoral Holdings. The farming company owns and operates 408,000 hectares around the Alice Springs area in central Australia.

Australia's most renowned barrister Allan Myers doesn’t just enforce the law of the land, he also owns a lot of it too. Cattle farming is the main preoccupation at the eminent lawyer’s Dunkeld Pastoral Company, which has holdings totalling more than 623,000 hectares in Western Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory. Myers also holds shares in the Tipperary Group of Stations, which spans 386,000 hectares, although it is unclear exactly how much of the land the barrister has a claim to. It was also rumoured in June 2020 that Myers bought 1,273 hectares of Devon Park, in Dunkeld, western Australia for AU$14.2 million (£8m) at auction, but it's not been publicly confirmed if Myers was the mystery buyer.

In 2015, Ma Xingfa, the chairman of Chinese automaker Geely, bagged two huge cattle stations in Queensland and the Northern Territory, which together total around 705,198 hectares. Ma later sold those stations last year, and is currently looking to do the same with his Balfour Downs and Wandaya stations, which amount to 634,004 hectares. The exact amount of land owned by the billionaire is unknown, but just factoring in these stations makes his stake in Australian land pretty hefty until he finds a buyer.

North Star Pastoral, which has 774,500 hectares of land in Australia including the immense Limbunya Station in the Northern Territory, is owned by Colin Ross. The cattleman hit the headlines in 2017 for his opposition to fracking in Australia and late last year announced that his holdings would be shrinking considerably as he plans to sell Limbunya and Maryfield stations. The stations are expected to fetch more than AU$150 million (£83.5m).

Scott Harris has hit the Australian headlines time and again for his controversial plans to clear thousands of hectares of bushland to expand his agricultural portfolio. Harris had permission to clear 58,000 of his enormous 931,000-hectare Strathmore Station in 2015, but came under fire for threatening animal habitats and damaging wetland in what was one of the country’s biggest single land clearings. Harris also owns Kingvale Station, and plans to clear more than 1,800 hectares of its land were strongly objected to given the plot’s proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

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Investors in Australian sustainable timber company New Forests, which include Japan's Mitsui & Co., ultimately own the firm's more than 950,000 hectares of forest in Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia, and the USA.

Filipino banker and property mogul Romeo Roxas has built a formidable real estate portfolio in Australia in recent years, including the addition of the 560,000-hectare Murray Downs Station and the 265,000-hectare Epenarra Station in 2015. Roxas already had significant agricultural interests in Australia, including more than 60,000 hectares in New South Wales, as well as the 80,000 hectares across the districts of Aurora and Quezon in the Philippines, bringing the property mogul’s portfolio to more than 965,000 hectares.

Chairman of Australia's TV network Seven, Kerry Stokes is passionate about agriculture as well as media. He currently owns at least 900,000 hectares of farmland in Western and South Australia in the form of stations Leopold Downs, Fairfield Station and Napier Downs, after selling one of his properties on Kangaroo Island in 2019. The media mogul is worth an impressive AU$5.95 billion (£3.3bn).

The son of the late Australian wool baron Sir William Gunn, Bill Gunn is the founder and majority shareholder in the Gunn Agri Partners trust, which runs several large-scale cattle stations across Australia totalling almost a million hectares.

This moneyed Australian family owns and operates over a million hectares of land Down Under, according to The Weekly Times. However, head of the family Tom Brinkworth died last August at the age of 83. His wife Patricia and the remaining family now control 100 holdings in total, from small farms to epic stretches of pasture that stretch as far as the eye can see. 

Backed by one of South Africa’s richest people, Giovanni Ravazzotti, and his daughter Luciana Ravazzotti Langenhoven and son-in-law Pierre Langenhoven, Rallen Australia is becoming a prominent player in the world of Australian landownership. In February 2020, the company acquired two major cattle stations, Tanumbirini and Forrest Hill, at a cost of AU$70 million (£39m). The stations stretch across 559,370 hectares and make up the bulk of the company’s extensive portfolio, which also includes Kalala Station, purchased for AU$58 million (£32m), and Mt McMinn and Big River stations, acquired for AU$7.5 million (£4.2m) and AU$5.5 million (£3m) respectively. Rallen currently owns 1.09 million hectares of land, with an eye to acquire more in the next decade, as reported by Financial Review.

One of Australia’s richest people with a fortune of AU$25.9 billion (£14.4bn), mining legend Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest has significant livestock farming interests. After purchasing another two stations at a cost of AUS$30 million (£17m) last year, the holdings, which include Western Australia's Minderoo and Brickhouse Cattle Stations, total 1.12 million hectares, an area more or less the size of Qatar. In 2020 Forrest found himself in the spotlight after his attempt to appeal a federal court decision in the High Court that indigenous Yindjibarndi people owned the rights to the Pilbara mine in Western Australia was rejected and the case was not heard.

The Hewitt family have been pastoralists in Queensland for generations and the clan still controls numerous land holdings across the Australian state, as well as in the Northern Territory and New South Wales. The family’s extensive portfolio of 16 stations and aggregations includes the 185,700-hectare Kalabity and the 127,337-hectare Tandou Station in Alice Springs, and after the 2017 purchase of the Hale pastoral stations, Ambalindum and Numery, the family portfolio expanded to 1.2 million hectares.

Robert McBride and family own and operate a slew of wool-producing businesses in Australia and are an important part of the wool industry in the country. All in all, the family controls 1.3 million hectares of land under AJ & PA McBridge ltd, which is larger than the Greater Sydney area, which spans around 1.24 million. The company has been passed through the family for years, and the current director is the fifth generation of McBrides to take charge of the portfolio.

The sprawling cattle business founded by the late Australian cattle baron Graeme Acton (pictured) is now owned by his family. The Acton Land and Cattle Company owned 1.58 million hectares when the Queenslander passed away in 2014, and the family has since formed Australian Cattle and Beef Holdings in a joint venture with the Lee family, who feature later in this round-up. Acton was well-known for his involvement in the Australian sport of campdrafting, where a horse and rider works cattle. But sadly it was this sport that led to his death after he fell from a horse during a competition and sustained severe injuries.

Stanbroke Pastoral runs eight enormous cattle stations in Queensland, making the firm one of the largest in the Australian farming sector. The company is controlled by the children of the late founder, grain king Peter Menegazzo, who was killed in a plane crash alongside his wife Angela in 2005. Menegazzo's sudden death has caused divides in the family, with his children still embroiled in court room dramas over their inheritance over a decade later.

In April 2020 the McMillan Pastoral Company agreed to buy Wollogorang Station and Wentworth Station from Chinese billionaire Ma Xingfa, who had acquired the holdings in 2015. The deal cost AUS$53 million (£30m) and boosted the McMillan family’s portfolio by almost 706,000 hectares. In their second acquisition of the year, the McMillans then purchased Roxborough Downs and Mudgerebar Station, adding another 420,000 hectares. The family already owned Calvert Hills Station in the Cloncurry region of North West Queensland, which they acquired for AUS$15 million (£8.5m) in 2013, bringing their total land to around 1.63 million hectares.

The Oxenford family owns and operates the Western Grazing Company, which has land holdings totalling 1.97 million hectares in Australia's Queensland and Northern Territory. The company’s largest station is Wave Hill, which stretches across 1.2 million hectares. The firm is one of the world's top producers of beef.

The Morgan and Wells families together own 2.1 million hectares of land along the border of South Australia and New South Wales. Their Mutooroo Pastoral Company was established in 1868 and manages five cattle stations including Quinyambie, which alone comprises 1.2 million hectares.

Australian retail entrepreneur Brett Blundy has amassed an epic portfolio of land over the past few years, including the supersized Walhallow Cattle Station in the Northern Territory, which he acquired in 2015 for AU$100 million (£56m) according to Farmland Grab. His BBRC Beef company owns about 2.4 million hectares in total.

The Lee family owns Australian Country Choice, one of Queensland's biggest and most successful farming firms. The company operates 34 farms, which add up to an impressive 2.42 million hectares of land.

The Hughes family have had a cattle business in Queensland since 1872. At 2.7 million hectares, the Hughes Pastoral Company is one of the biggest and most profitable beef-producing enterprises on the planet. The company is particularly known for its Wagyu beef, and the family's plan is that Hughes Pastoral will soon be completely Wagyu in the next couple of years.

The aristocratic Holmes à Court family are the proud owners of Australia's Heytesbury Cattle Company, which controls more than 2.7 million hectares of land in the Northern Territory across four individual stations: Moolooloo, Pigeon Hole, Mount Sanford, and Victoria River Downs.

Along with his family, organic food enthusiast David Brook owns and operates several farms in southern Queensland and South Australia totalling a gargantuan 3 million hectares. All of the farms and their products are certified organic and are completely free of chemicals, pollutants and additional hormones.

The McDonalds have been farming Down Under since the early 19th century, and the suitably named family now runs a total of 175,000 cattle over 3.36 million hectares in the heart of Queensland.

Australia's largest privately-owned beef producer, the Consolidated Pastoral Company has around 300,000 head of cattle at any one time and a massive 3.6 million hectares throughout the country. The company is majority-owned by UK investor Guy Hands' Terra Firma Capital Partners.

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In late 2018, Australian farmers Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello teamed up to buy 1.65 million-hectare cattle station Clifton Hills in South Australia, the country's second largest farm and one of the biggest in the world. Their Crown Point Pastoral Company now manages around 4.45 million hectares across five stations and at least 48,000 head of cattle.

The Paraway Pastoral Company runs a number of major sheep and cattle businesses covering over 4.48 million hectares across Australia. The firm is owned by banking giant the Macquarie Group, who also own younger organisations such as Lawson Grains Ltd., which spans 74,500 hectares.

The Williams family's eponymous cattle company acquired the gigantic Anna Creek Station in South Australia in 2016, which at 1.57 million hectares is the largest working cattle station in the world. The family also owns another seven cattle stations in the same state, totalling 4.5 million hectares.

The Jumbuck Pastoral Company was established in Adelaide by patriarch H. P. MacLachlan back in 1888. The firm, which is wholly owned by the founder's descendants, controls more than 5 million hectares across Australia and is the country's chief wool supplier.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's nephew heads the Handbury Group, which owns and operates Arcoona Cattle Station and Wagyu cattle property Swinging Shovel in South Australia, as well as Western Australia's The Rises. The combined hectarage of the properties comes to more than 5.28 million.

Founded in 1877, the privately-owned North Australian Pastoral Company is one of the largest cattle companies Down Under. The company manages six million hectares in Queensland and the Northern Territory, including the 1.6 million-hectare farm Alexandria, which has around 55,000 head of cattle.

Dating way back to 1824, the Australian Agricultural Company is the nation's oldest firm. Today, it's a world-leading beef producer with British tycoon Joe Lewis as the major shareholder. The company owns and operates an incredible 6.4 million hectares in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

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Australia's wealthiest person is now the country's number one private individual landowner. Mining magnate Gina Rinehart teamed up with China's Shanghai CRED in 2016 to buy the lion's share of S. Kidman & Co. which is the largest individual private land holding on the planet. This has not only added to her already bulging real estate portfolio, but also means that the amount of Australian land she owns is equivalent to the whole of South Korea in terms of area. Rinehart’s holdings are set to decrease in the coming year, however, as she recently announced plans to sell cattle stations in Western Australia and the Northern Territory that amount to 1.876 million hectares. The billionaire wants to focus on innovating operations at her other stations, which will total 7.8 million hectares once the sales are complete, but will still see her in pole position as Australia’s biggest landowner. 

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