Ranked: Countries With the Largest Forests in 2025
November 2, 2025
By Pallavi Rao
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Key Takeaways- Russia has 833 million hectares of forest, about 20% of the entire world’s forests.
- Brazil (486M ha) and Canada (369M ha) rank second and third respectively.
- With the U.S. (309M ha) and China (227M ha), just five countries have half of the world’s forests
Forest landscapes shape climates, absorb carbon, and support millions of species.
The visualization ranks the countries with the largest forests in 2025, revealing how woodland is distributed across the planet.
Data for this visualization comes from the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), released this October.
Five Countries Have Half the World’s Forests
Russia tops the list with 833 million hectares (ha) of forest, one-fifth of global tree cover.
Search:
Rank
Country/Territory
ISO Code
Forest Area
(1,000 Hectares, 2025)
Share of World's
Forests (2025)
|
|
| 1 | ???? Russia | RUS | 832,629.93 | 20.11% | | 2 | ???? Brazil | BRA | 486,086.64 | 11.74% | | 3 | ???? Canada | CAN | 368,818.85 | 8.91% | | 4 | ???? U.S. | USA | 308,895.00 | 7.46% | | 5 | ???? China | CHN | 227,153.00 | 5.49% | | 6 | ???? DRC | COD | 139,189.05 | 3.36% | | 7 | ???? Australia | AUS | 133,561.59 | 3.23% | | 8 | ???? Indonesia | IDN | 95,969.30 | 2.32% | | 9 | ???? India | IND | 72,739.00 | 1.76% | | 10 | ???? Peru | PER | 67,159.76 | 1.62% |
N/A
?? World
N/A
4,140,216.55
N/A
Note: For reference, one hectare is equal to 2.47 acres, or roughly two (American) football fields.
Together with Brazil (486M ha) and Canada (369M ha), the top three nations account for more than 40% of global forests.
Add the U.S. (309M ha) and China (227M ha), and the share rises to 50%.
This concentration underlines how policy decisions in a handful of capitals can sway the fate of the world’s woodland.
Tropical Forests Keep Planet Cool
Brazil’s Amazon rainforest alone stores roughly one-quarter of all land-based carbon, making its preservation a climate priority.
Other equatorial nations, including the DRC, Indonesia, and Peru, also appear in the top 10. Their moist, biodiverse forests act as vital “lungs,” recycling water and stabilizing rainfall patterns far beyond their borders.
Yet these countries are simultaneously hotspots for logging, agriculture, and mining, highlighting the tension between economic growth and conservation.
?? Related: The health of the Amazon rainforest is critical for global food security.
Reforestation Makes a Mark in Asia and Europe
China’s fifth-place ranking is backed by decades of large-scale tree-planting initiatives, such as the “Great Green Wall.”
Across Europe, Sweden and Finland show how sustainable forestry can coexist with vigorous timber industries, each maintaining roughly 28 million hectares of managed woodland.
Türkiye and Spain, further down the list, also owe their sizable forest footprints to ambitious reforestation programs that reversed 20th-century declines.
These examples spotlight policy tools—like afforestation incentives and strict harvest limits—that other nations could adopt.
Despite these initiatives, preserving primary forests (that is, not planted by humans) remains a critical environmental goal in combating climate change. |
