Public property

Public shore marker, San Francisco Bay, Burlingame, California

Public property is property which is jointly owned by a whole community of individuals or by a non-communistic, dictatorial, or totalitarian government, as opposed to private property, which is owned exclusively by an individual or individuals jointly that do not constitute the whole community.

In the modern representative democracy, "public property" is synonymous to state property, which is said to be owned by the people as a commons. In many Commonwealth realms, such property is said to be owned by the Crown. Examples include Crown land, Crown copyright, and Crown Dependencies.

Most public property is accessible to the general public, such as zoos, libraries, schools, and parks; some is reserved for restricted use, such as military bases and research laboratories.

See also

• Public space
• Res extra commercium

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