The government (and the real estate market in general) values "subdivision" ground higher because it's worth more.
That's not really true, at least around here.
Nobody is going to buy 10-30 square miles of remote land for say, $2000 an acre. Not all at once anyway. Now, if you built a bunch of roads (in rough country) and filed for easements to access every 80 acre parcel (any smaller and you have to go through a whole bunch of other govt hoops), then
eventually you could get that price for the whole thing. (after several years, minus all your development and marketing expenses)
As range land, it's worth maybe $250 acre. Still, that's a lot of money to pay for a place that
might support one family at say $30-50K net/yr. That's on a good year, when beef prices are up and you don't lose too many animals to disease, calf mortality, coyotes, wolves, cougars, lightning, flood, drought, and numerous other ways that a cow finds to commit suicide.
So what happens is some fairly poor (by modern standards) family that has owned a ranch for 80-100 years has to sell it to pay the taxes on $12.8 million, rather than maybe the $2 million that it's worth for land and improvements as a ranch. (unless they have made some arrangements like incorporation prior to the elders' demise)