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Data

Forest area

The area of forest in each country and in the world in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025, in thousands of hectares, as reported to FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025.

Latest value

4,140,444thousand ha

Countries and areas reporting to FRA 2025, and the world (sum of all 236), 2025. Version FRA 2025 platform, downloaded 2026-10-05.

Forest area (thousand hectares)

6 values from 1990 to 2025.
Show as a table
Forest area, every value
PeriodValue (thousand ha)Status
19904,343,534final
20004,236,589final
20104,200,995final
20154,181,440final
20204,165,289final
20254,140,444final
Calculated by Environment Dashboard from FAO. 2026. Global Forest Resources Assessment. https://fra-data.fao.org. Accessed on: 2026-10-04. Licence: CC-BY-4.0. Global estimates: FAO. 2025. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6709en Changes: world total calculated as the sum of all countries and areas. CC BY 4.0 (FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use; report CC BY 4.0).

Notes on individual values

  • FRA flag I: Imputed value, desk study, data compiled by FAO.
  • FRA flag A: Normal value, official data reported by country/area.

Where it comes from

Producer
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forestry Division · Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025
Version
FRA 2025 platform, downloaded 2026-10-05
File
https://fra-data.fao.org/api/file/bulk-download?assessmentName=fra&cycleName=2025&countryIso=WO
Fetched
2026-10-04 (automatically), 1,377,159 bytes
Fingerprint
sha256 cd12ea6ef902e1fc9f9dc07f834eb2e29b95791aa38f060fec9f1e67d11c010c
Copies
No Wayback copy recorded yet.Our copy of the exact file
Cite the producer
FAO. 2025. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6709en. FAO. 2026. Global Forest Resources Assessment. https://fra-data.fao.org. Accessed on: 2026-10-04
Producer
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forestry Division · Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025
Version
FRA 2025 platform, downloaded 2026-10-05
File
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/12322cae-5b20-4be2-927a-72a86fd319e9/content
Fetched
2026-10-04 (automatically), 8,585,230 bytes
Fingerprint
sha256 9b77d433587bec0c6882a3f9e06c96ad6eb33ffe823bfe910e4f6a418cc68d27ETag "bfcf1b18a9f5360baa693fcd6a04029e" · Last-Modified Tue, 21 Oct 2025 06:30:26 GMT
Copies
No Wayback copy recorded yet.Our copy of the exact file
Cite the producer
FAO. 2025. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6709en. FAO. 2026. Global Forest Resources Assessment. https://fra-data.fao.org. Accessed on: 2026-10-04

What was done to it

  1. Read FRA_Years_2026-10-05.csv from the FRA 2025 platform's bulk download (all countries and areas). The vintage is the download date in the member names, 2026-10-05; the platform has no other version label.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/fra_2025.py · code sha256 effd975216c5bb9a… · inputs cd12ea6ef902… 9b77d433587b…

  2. Kept 1a_forestArea (forest area, thousand hectares, as printed) and its flag for 236 countries and areas and the six reporting years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025. Flags: A "Normal value, official data reported by country/area" (194 countries and areas); I "Imputed value, desk study, data compiled by FAO" (42 countries and areas); each country's values name their flag in a note.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/fra_2025.py · code sha256 effd975216c5bb9a… · inputs cd12ea6ef902… 9b77d433587b…

  3. Matched each country and area by its ISO 3 code; French Guiana, Mayotte, Réunion and Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands, which FRA reports separately, are published as their own entities.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/fra_2025.py · code sha256 effd975216c5bb9a… · inputs cd12ea6ef902… 9b77d433587b…

  4. World = the sum of the forest area of all 236 countries and areas in the file for each year (exact decimal arithmetic), as FAO computes its global figure.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/fra_2025.py · code sha256 effd975216c5bb9a… · inputs cd12ea6ef902… 9b77d433587b…

  5. For comparison only, the WORLD row of the report's Table 5 (PDF page 35, published 2025-10-21), in thousand ha: 1990: report 4 343 534, here 4 343 534.45; 2000: report 4 236 587, here 4 236 589.39; 2010: report 4 201 001, here 4 200 995.20; 2015: report 4 181 435, here 4 181 439.67; 2020: report 4 165 241, here 4 165 289.00; 2025: report 4 140 217, here 4 140 443.71. The two differ slightly; the platform data can include country revisions made after the report was published.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/fra_2025.py · code sha256 effd975216c5bb9a… · inputs cd12ea6ef902… 9b77d433587b…

What it covers

Geography
Countries and areas reporting to FRA 2025, and the world (sum of all 236)
Basis
FRA definition of forest: land spanning more than 0.5 ha with trees higher than 5 m and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ, not predominantly under agricultural or urban land use. A land-use definition reported by countries (official data, or FAO desk studies where a country did not report), not satellite tree cover.
Unit
thousand hectares (thousand ha)