IV.

Countries Using Irrigation

India, with 56 million hectares (138 million acres) of land under irrigation, and China, with 55 million hectares (135 million acres), far exceed the other nations. Other countries with vast areas of irrigated land include the United States with 22 million hectares (55 million acres), Pakistan with 18 million hectares (45 million acres), and Iran with 8 million hectares (19 million acres).

India has made impressive gains in the last 30 years, increasing its irrigated land by more than 50 percent. Besides undertaking close to 700 large irrigation projects on its rivers, India has tapped underground water, employing hundreds of thousands of motor-driven tube wells. In the United States about 13 percent of farmland is irrigated. Nearly 90 percent of irrigated land is concentrated in the 17 Western states.