Forest Facts for Kids

20 Forest Facts For Kids

1. A forest is an area or region that is dominated by trees, plants, and animals.
2. There is no single definition for a forest, for example the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) classifies a forest as an area of land larger than 0.5 hectares, has trees over 15 feet and a canopy coverage greater than 10 percent.
3. According to available fossil evidence forests first started to appear around 390 million years ago, but they didn’t become widespread until 360 million years ago.
4. Forests are found worldwide and represent the largest terrestrial ecosystem on our planet.
5. All forests worldwide collectively cover around 30% of the Earth’s landmass.
6. The largest forest in the world is the Amazon Rainforest at 2.1 million square miles, followed by the Congo Rainforest at 770,000 square miles.
7. The country with the most forests is Russia with 885 million hectares in 2020.
8. There are around 3 trillion trees worldwide with most of them being found in forests.
9. Forests are home to a wide variety of flora (plants) and fauna (animals).
10. There are three types of forests (forest biomes) and they are boreal forests, temperate forests, and tropical forests.
11. Boreal forests are in the northern latitudes (subarctic zone), have predominately coniferous trees (pines, larches, spruces, etc.), and low precipitation (rain).
12. Coniferous trees in boreal forests do not shed their foliage (needles).
13. An example of a boreal forest is the North American Boreal located mostly in Canada, North America.
14. Temperate forests are in the middle latitudes (temperate zone), have predominately deciduous trees (oak trees, maple trees, etc.), and moderate precipitation.
15. Deciduous trees in temperate forests shed their foliage (leaves) annually as the seasons change from spring/summer to fall/winter.
16. An example of a temperate forest is the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest located in Nevada and California in the United States.
17. Tropical forests are near the equator (subtropic and tropic zone), have heavy tree canopy, and heavy precipitation.
18. An example of a tropical forest is the Amazon rainforest and makes up a large part of northern South America.
19. Due to human consumption of trees (deforestation), we have reduced the worldwide population of trees by 46% over the last 12,000 years.
20. A wildfire, also known as a forest fire, is an event where combustible vegetation in a forest catches fire and burns a part of that forest.

Forest Pictures

Pictures can be far better than words when it comes to understanding something. That's why we've provided you with the below images to help you with your research on forests. Below you will find three pictures related to forests. These pictures should give you a bettering understanding of forests and what they look like.

A picture of a forest during the summer.

A picture of a forest during the fall.

A picture of a forest during the winter.