Forest facts: the world's remaining cover
Forest cover is one of the few global measurements moving in both directions at once, and the countries with the highest proportion of it are rarely the ones with the most of it.
Which is the largest forest in the world?
The boreal forest
The taiga stretching across Siberia is the world's largest forest by area, larger than the Amazon. It holds roughly a fifth of all trees on Earth.
Source: FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment
Roughly how many trees are there on Earth?
About 3 trillion
A 2015 study combining ground counts with satellite data put the figure near 3 trillion, about 400 per person, and roughly half what there were before farming.
Source: Crowther et al., Nature, 2015
Which country has the highest share of its land covered in forest?
Suriname, at over 90 percent
Suriname is over 90 percent forested, the highest share of any country. Guyana and Gabon are close behind; Finland leads Europe at about 73 percent.
Source: FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment
What has happened to Europe's forest area over the last century?
It has grown substantially
European forest cover has increased by roughly a third since 1900 as farmland was abandoned and forests were replanted, the opposite of the tropical trend.
Source: Forest Europe State of Europe's Forests reports
Mangrove forests are valued largely because they do what?
Buffer coasts and store carbon
Mangroves absorb wave energy, reduce storm surge damage, and store several times more carbon per hectare than most terrestrial forests. Roughly a third have been lost since 1980.
Source: Global Mangrove Alliance; UNEP assessments
Where do the world's tallest trees grow?
California
Coast redwoods exceed 115 m, taller than any other species. Their exact locations are kept secret to protect them from visitor damage.
Source: Save the Redwoods League; US National Park Service
The oldest known individual non-clonal tree is roughly how old?
About 4,800 years
A Great Basin bristlecone pine in California has been dated past 4,800 rings, older than the Great Pyramid. Clonal colonies such as Pando are far older as organisms.
Source: Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona
What drives most tropical deforestation?
Agriculture
Agriculture accounts for the large majority: cattle pasture, soy and palm oil above all. Logging often precedes it but is rarely the final land use.
Source: FAO and World Resources Institute analyses
Which is the world's second-largest tropical rainforest?
The Congo Basin
The Congo Basin covers about 3.7 million km2 across six countries and, unlike the Amazon, is still believed to be a net carbon sink.
Source: Central African Forest Initiative; FAO