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When I fly near my local airport (KSSF) in San Antonio, there's a designated South Practice Area and North Practice Area. ATC knows where they are and all the flight schools at the airport seem to have a common idea of their boundaries.

However, they aren't marked anywhere on charts or supplements and I can't seem to find any information online. I was wondering how these are communicated between different entities (control towers, ARTCCs, flight schools) - are they standardized at all? Is there anywhere I can find information?

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    $\begingroup$ Based on my personal experience, the established (and apparently FAA-sanctioned) procedure is to get on the glider frequency 123.5 and constantly call out your location every couple of minutes, much to the annoyance of every glider pilot within radio range. $\endgroup$
    – quiet flyer
    Jan 11, 2022 at 21:01

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Some practice areas are charted, e.g. there's one near Hillsboro, OR. The VFR sectional has this note just northwest of the Newberg VOR:

enter image description here

If you then look up the Chart Supplement, there are more details on the area and the frequency to use:

enter image description here

Note that 122.75 is the general air-to-air frequency for the US, it isn't a specific frequency for that area.

Having said that, many practice areas are informal and they rely on local knowledge. That could be a documented agreement between ATC and flight schools, or an informal arrangement between local instructors. I have no idea who determines which areas are worth charting.

As far as I know, there's no specific regulation or central FAA control of practice areas, with the exception of aerobatic practice areas.

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